The Demand for Landfills for Asbestos-Containing Waste in Poland

Abstract

In 1998 a broad and long-lasting process of asbestos removal from the territory of the entire country was started in Poland, which at the same time resulted in the generation of group 17 hazardous waste asbestos-containing waste. The asbestos removal in Poland from the area of individual municipalities is carried out based on the Programme of Country Cleaning from Asbestos for the years 2009–2023. The landfilling in places especially designed for this purpose is the basic method for effective disposal of asbestos-containing waste. In the area of Poland there is a number of landfills or sections designed and adapted to landfill asbestos-containing waste (33 facilities). There are also plans to expand such facilities or to build new ones (11 projects). The basis to carry out the analysis consists of the data and information collected in the Asbestos Database of the Ministry of Entrepreneurship and Technology (http://www.bazaazbestowa.gov.pl). At the moment more than 5 million Mg of asbestos-containing products have been registered in the territory of Poland during stocktaking, of which more than one million in the Mazovian Voivodeship only. The registered amount of asbestos-containing products in individual municipalities was considered the amount of potential generation of asbestos-containing waste in the future. On the entire country scale the amount of material registered in the stocktaking is definitely higher than that forecast based on generation indices (Klojzy-Karczmarczyk B. et al. 2016). Voivodeships with high accumulation of asbestos-containing products comprise mainly the area of central Poland. Overall, in the territory of Poland there are 33 landfills, where asbestos-containing products can be subject to disposal. The next 11 projects are planned as expansion of the existing or construction of new facilities. On the entire country scale there is now a deficit of landfilling capacity of approx. 1,750,000 m3 in the case of stocktaking results analysis or of 500,000 m3 in the case of generation analysis based on indices. After the carried out planned expansion of the landfilling base the deficits will decrease to the amount of 600,000 m3 in the case of stocktaking results analysis and even the possible capacity will exceed the demand by 600,000 m3 in the case of generation analysis based on indices. The best conditions for landfilling exist now in the Świętokrzyskie voivodeship after the expansion of the landfilling base, very good possibilities of waste reception will be obtained by the Kuyavian-Pomeranian voivodeship. Taking into account all the performed analysis the necessity to expand the existing base for asbestos-containing waste landfilling should be stated. It is necessary to emphasise that this expansion does not require to take immediate actions and may be distributed over time due to a slow process of asbestos-containing products removal from the area of individual municipalities.