COMPARATIVE WASTE MANAGEMENT ANALYSIS OF FOUR EU REGIONS; EMILIA-ROMAGNA (ITALY), YORKSHIRE AND HUMBER (ENGLAND), SOFIA (BULGARIA) AND AMSTERDAM (NETHERLANDS) (EU FP7 REGIONS OF KNOWLEDGE WASTEKIT PROJECT)

摘要

WasteKIT is an EU FP7 Regions of knowledge project based on research into ‘Waste managementfocussing on: Knowledge and Integration to create Transnational economic development’. Each region is representedvia a triple helix of stakeholders, regional/local authority or related organisation, knowledge institution and business.There are four EU regions involved; Emilia-Romagna (Italy), Yorkshire and Humber (England), Sofia (Bulgaria) andAmsterdam (Netherlands) with a total of 19 partners. The main purpose of this paper was to analyse municipal solidwaste management of the four studied regions based on research & technical development (RTD), innovation andinfrastructures, in order to indentify regional and inter-regional strengths and barriers to waste management relatedeconomic development. The Netherlands are recognized throughout Europe as an “advanced” country in terms of itswaste management practice. As such, the Amsterdam region boasts the best overall performance, making the regionideally placed to tutor on most aspects of sustainable waste management practice. The Emilia-Romagna Region has aheavy and concentrated cluster of facilities and infrastructure processing bio-waste and agri-wastes. The Yorkshireand Humber region has a well established waste materials market and provides a high level of business support. Incontrast, the Sofia region is uniquely placed to learn from the other regions. Therefore, Sofia has the most potential toinnovate through business practice and RTD. Lack of environmental awareness from the public, conflicts betweenplanning authorities and the challenge of access to finance have been found as the most common inter-regionalbarriers to municipal solid waste management. As a result, five thematic areas (technology waste to energy, optionsfor plastics, knowledge transfer, funding & spin-off projects and public perception & understanding of waste) havebeen identified to generate action plans to facilitate the economic development towards sustainable wastemanagement.