Recent Advances in Fluid Mechanics, Heat & Mass Transfer and Biology

The Composition of the Domestic Waste in Timișoara

IULIA PARA, DANIELA STANCIU Department of Modern Languages West University of Timioara – Faculty of Economics and Business Administration 16, J.H.Pestalozzi, 300115, Timioara ROMANIA [email protected] , [email protected]

Abstract: Our study aims to present and analyse the data resulted from the analysis of municipal waste composition in Timisoara, Romania, in comparison with BadenWurttemberg, Germany. The present article is the outcome of a laborious work of researchers from BadenWürttemberg, the German collaborator, Retim Timioara, and scientists from the Polytechnic University of Timioara. The methodology is based on the procedure of the Brandenburg Directive concept; the basic principle is the stratification of the complex basic totality in typical subsets with representative attributes.

Key-Words: waste economy, waste management, ecology, recycling, municipal waste composition, biological waste;

1 Introduction Due to these reasons, the sorting campaign is The task of the Institute for Sanitary Engineering, concentrating on Timioara. Due to the fact that Water and Waste Administration (ISWA) from the Retim put the infrastructure at the disposal and University of Stuttgart was to analyze the enssured the material and staff support, there was composition of the domestic waste in Romania with analyzed next to the waste from the one container the help of scientific methods. Cooperation partners system, the moist container from the two container in Romania are: “Hidrotehnica” Faculty at the system. “Politehnica” University of Timioara, as well as The methodology is based on the procedure of the disposal enterprises Retim (Timioara) and the Brandenburg Directive concept. The basic Goscom (Vaslui). principle is the stratification of the complex basic Our task in this project was to maintain the totality in typical subsets with representative cooperation between the parts and to ensure the attributes. logical language framework. All along the process The basic totality is the domestic waste in we were responsible for the accuracy of the Romania and the subset is the domestic waste in information and we took part at several steps of this Timioara. The town is subdivided into four interesting and new concept in our country, of residential structures: City center, Residential studying the composition of domestic waste. blocks, New building and Outskirts area. In agreement with the National Agency for The composition of domestic waste can be Environmental Protection (ANPM) in Bucharest, influenced, in the way that in gardens, for example, both municipalities were chosen as contradicting there appear vegetable rests or in single areas, namely Timioara and Vaslui: Timioara households, there appear more packages from enjoys a dynamic economic development and an products of the FastFood type, than in households unemployment rate of briefly over 2 percent. The formed of retired couples. The campaign took place during June 2nd – 12th, region Vaslui is strongly agriculture oriented and th th owns the highest unemployment rate in Romania as 2010 and September 16 – 27 , 2010. well as the lowest GDP in Europe. 25 single fractions were sorted out by hand on a For both cities, two sorting campaigns unfurled sorting table with a sieve diameter of 40 mms. All according to the season were planned. Due to together, approx. 6.750 kg were submitted to financial reasons, Vaslui could not continue analysis. A representation of the specific waste participating in the project after the local elections amount per inhabitant and year was not possible. in June, in spite of reinforced strains of ISWA, no alternative locality could be found.

ISBN: 978-960-474-268-4 94 Recent Advances in Fluid Mechanics, Heat & Mass Transfer and Biology

2 Objective of the Study faculty, Goscom and Retim can be retained that a The Institute of Sanitary, Water Quality Economy high percentage of waste – predominantly and Waste Economy of the University of Stuttgart consisting of biological waste – is stored or burned carried out an investigation objective, which has as in village disposals. purpose to analyze with scientific methods the According to press evaluation of the Consulate composition of domestic waste based on selected of Germany in Timioara many village wells in the structural areas in Romania. Timi County are strongly loaded with nitrite and In accordance with the national agency for nitrate. Nevertheless, the wells are furthermore environmental protection in Romania (ANPM), it used, also because of the present omission to was decided that the campaign concentrates on two inform the citizens on time. regions. The two municipalities Timioara to the Partly, villages come to an arrangement with Northwest and Vaslui to the Northeast were named the disposal enterprises in the towns and deliver the as sampling region. The two cities are rubbish independently. [1] From time to time, representative for the different unfurling of the occupational commuters take the waste with them economical development inside Romania, which is to town and throw it away in the containers now exemplarily outlined. standing on the roadside. Partially the rubbish is Timioara, in the Timi County, with 310,000 also illegally unloaded at the corner of the street. inhabitants, is the fourthbiggest city in Romania and at the same time the economic and cultural metropolis of the whole Northwest region Banat. 2.2 Urban Area To the West there are immediately joining the Whether road construction, whether house building, borders to Serbia and Hungary. By extensive energy industry or waste economy: Mainly the infrastructure measures like the designation of new urban area profited during the years before 1989 by trade parks, technology parks or dutyfree zones, the political will from that time, to modernize foreign investors settle permanently in the city – Romania. [1] The following years of the change above all in the producing trade and in the service government up to the adhesion of Romania to the area. [2] The city and its citizens profit from a EU in 2007 were marked by continuous economic prospering economic life and an unemployment decline with accompanying inflation. rate of briefly over 2 percent. The investors must take care to presently find wellqualified professional forces on the job market. This is 2.3 Fee System and Logistics another reason why the gross average wages have The basic charge in both towns, for the emptying of almost trebled to just 1402 RON (approx. 390 €) the waste bins in the one container system and of during the last five years. [2] The public law the rest waste container and recyclable material corporations can barely follow this wage container amounts per inhabitant and month development and lose increasingly on attraction. converted in Euro at approx. 80 Cents. Vaslui city lies in the county with the same There should be mentioned that neither in name and counts 70,000 inhabitants. Vaslui County Vaslui nor in Timioara weight data exist, because is a part of the very agrarian stamped regions of on the respective disposal and factory area exists no Moldavia, being situated directly on the border balance for the collecting vehicles. with Moldavia. The unemployment decreased from more than 15 percent in 2003 on just 10 percent in 2007 and remains at the same time, one of the 2.4 Collecting System highest in Romania. The Vaslui region covers with Now the collective system is converted from one 16.5 percent (1.712 EUR) the lowest gross container system to the twocontainer system. The domestic product per inhabitant in the EU27 twocontainer system makes available to the citizen average (state of 2005). a rest waste container and a recyclable material container, or a recyclable material bag. All containers are emptied twice per week, 2.1 Frame Conditions of the Waste Economy independently one from another. Rural Area In Timioara, the waste bin is introduced for the In the rural regions of Romania exists by far no most part, all over the area. Container dimensions waste economy structure. After conversations with of 120 and 240 liters are provided for the waste economy experts from the Hidrotehnica households. Bigger containers, of 1,100 liters are included in the near future plan to increase the

ISBN: 978-960-474-268-4 95 Recent Advances in Fluid Mechanics, Heat & Mass Transfer and Biology

efficiency of the collection. Braitim (New building) 8.323 Ronat (Outskirts) 3.976 Freidorf (Outskirts) 2.906 3 Methodology The sorting campaign leans on the The present figures represent 12 percent of the recommendations of the "guideline draft of inhabitants and are not adequate for an Brandenburg“, which is applied nowadays in extrapolation. If the proportionality factors are still Germany all over the country. calculated between the settlement structures, seems Because a full investigation is impossible in the the result plausible. With this occasion, the waste economy because of the pure amount of averages of the numbers of inhabitants were formed waste, it is avoided a partial investigation with an with residential blocks (Odobescu and Tipografilor) accidental choice (random check). The sampling and with outskirts areas (Ronat and Freidorf). region is considered as a complex and inhomogeneous basic totality for which there can´t Table 2: Proportional distribution of the present be dripped a qualitative resilient statement. That is number of inhabitants per settlement structure why the basic totality is split in several subsets. City 17 % The subsets are further subdivided into Residential block 46 % stratifications with certain signs. The more prestigiously the signs are, the narrower becomes New building area 21 % their dispersion and with it sinks the complexity of Outskirts area 17 % the subsets, which become more homogeneous, and the statistical representativeness increases. The extrapolation on the basic totality is more resilient. 3.2 Approach at collecting Because there are no significant differences with In accordance with Retim and the faculty the filling in between provided 120 and 240liter “Hidrotehnica” the sampling regions were selected containers, the container size was not taken into taking into account the four agreed settlement consideration with the extrapolation. Nevertheless, structures. For any stratification there were there was noted the container size for every single considered an area in the onecontainer system and container in order to establish the filling degree, an area in the twocontainer system. The well and to the calculation of the specific weight. chosen parts of town and communes were sampled For the future supply of 1,100 liter containers is immediately before the regular discharge, in the recommended a subdivision of the stratifications early morning. An employee of the faculty after container size, because bulky objects can be “Hidrotehnica” and ISWA accompanied the decontaminated only in the big container. Values collecting vehicle. With this sampling, it was paid from the experience of the ISWA show that in big attention to the fact that there existed no containers “are hidden” with pleasure, unpleasant commercial trimming and no remarkable false objects, incompliant with the collective system. loads – like debris. The collecting protocol included the container number, the container volume, as well as the container filling degree. The 3.1 Inhabitant's statistics volume was estimated with a precision of 10 In accordance with the disposal enterprises, the percent. inhabitant's statistics orientates itself on the disposal areas of RETIM within the town. As an 3.3. Staff and equipment alternative there could not be considered a container statistics. The inhabitant's statistics for The Faculty “Hidrotehnica” of the “Politehnica” the preserved disposal zones are presented in table University from Timișoara, provided the trained 1: sorting staff and the sorting hall. The students were equipped with gloves and breathe protection. On Table 1: Numbers of inhabitants per disposal zone the sorting place, smoking, drinking or eating were (Retim: "Routes") prohibited. Soap and sanitary ethyl alcohol were Timioara. Total 330.898 provided. In particular, it was several times Centru (Center) 6.781 highlighted the danger coming from used syringes Odobescu (Residential block) 9.896 in the waste. A firstaid kit was ready in case of Tipografilor (Residential block) 8.597 need. An emergency call list was provided. The sorting staff consisted at the first sorting

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campaign, of four students and two gophers from – it is given no postdecimal point with the results. Retim. The students could be used from midday during exam time at the university. For the second sorting campaign were allday ready two students 4.2 Error calculation and a gopher. Because ISWA has no data from other sorting Retim made available during the campaign the campaigns, it is given up a calculation of the collective vehicle including the staff, sorting table, variation coefficients. ISWA recommends at least waste bin for the sorting, balances, lab tests and a four sorting campaigns distributed during the year, rented car. in order to be able to credibly illustrate the variation width with the single fractions.

4 Data evaluation All together, there were sorted approx. 94,000 liters 4.3 Composition of the fine fraction<40 mms of waste – respectively recyclable materials – For the fine fraction it was carried out a literature manually. This volume corresponds to a weight of research and it was attached a middle value of 65 approx. 6,750 kg. 24 fractions were sorted out. The percent for the biological waste. sieve section amounted at the first campaign in June with a team's strength of 6 men, 40 mms and 8 mms. For the second campaign in September, it 4.4. Fine cinder and fine dust was given up the sieving of the fine fraction, In Timioara and Vaslui the households are because the team's strength decreased on three men. connected to the central system of distant heating For the data evaluation there were customarily or own central heating. Only sporadically, in the calculated also the specific waste masses with older outskirts areas, stove heating is still to found. regard to inhabitant and year for the single Therefore the initial consideration for taking stove fractions. However, in Timioara there are different heating was dropped as a sign for sampling insecurity values which complicate a resilient data samples. During the completely sorting, there could generation. be identified only one bag with cinder. The In Timioara the containers are emptied twice question whether it could be also cinder from grill per week. The stationary time of the containers coal stays open. amounts thereby once to three and once to four Nevertheless peculiar but not unexpectedly, is days. Interesting is also the fact, whether the the fine dust from the renovation and repair work, containers are emptied before or after the weekend. which resulted with all collecting tours. The In addition, the citizens – above all in the outskirts amount in debris reflects therefore the dynamic areas and in the new building areas – do not put development in the whole construction branch in their container for every emptying at the street Romania. edge. All eventualities can lead, in the end, to the fact that the waste amounts are overestimated or underestimated. With the twice weekly regular discharge in 5 Conclusions Timioara it is necessary that there are sampled Further, the results of the sorting campaign in both regular discharges during a week and that in Timioara are presented. The mass percentages in parallel it is made a field research that clears moist substance are represented simplified in the whether and how often the citizens use the weekly text as percent values. regular discharge. This additional expenditure We have observed the differences of waste could not be performed within the scope of this composition in the moist container from the two study. Therefore, the study limits itself to the container system and from the singlecontainer question of the percent composition of domestic system, which are marginal. For the dry container waste. (containing recyclable materials) in the two container system, this means that recyclable materials are lost, from the quantitative as well as 4.1 Error tolerances at weighing from the qualitative point of view. A significant For the percentages was established an error quantity of paper and cardboard is not collected in tolerance of 1 percent per fraction from the total the dry container for recyclable materials and it is quantity. Therefore, to avoid also a false precision soaked due to organic residuals in the moist

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container. Therefore, they lose quality and value. In Timioara the percentage of glass amounts to 6 percent, in BadenWurttemberg to approx. 14 percent. Background is surely the very well Individual Results presentation on Group Materials developed glass recycling infrastructure and the All percentual values are percents reported to the returnable glass system in Germany. humid fraction The differences between BadenWurttemberg and Timioara regarding the percentages of paper Fig. 1 ONECONTAINER SYSTEM and cardboard in the domestic waste are very Others remarkable. In Timioara the percentage in paper Diapers 8% 4% and cardboard amounts to 10 percent, that is about Debris Organic one quarter of the amount in BadenWurttemberg. 6% 48% This is due to the luxuriant offer of print media on Glass 6% one hand, and to the large amounts in bulk mail consignments in Germany. On the other hand, the private collectors, to the regular discharge, as it is in Germany, by the socalled bundle collectors, remove the paper and cardboard in Timioara. Only the amounts through the regular discharge could be tested for this sorting campaign. Fine The percentage by far higher, of electrical Non-Organic waste waste and scrap metals in BadenWurttemberg 6% Paper & results from the finemeshed net of recycling Cardboard Plastic 10% centers built up all over the Land. In Romania 12% rather private waste collectors – often by horse cars – take over the disposal of scrap metals and Fig. 2 TWOCONTAINER SYSTEM electrical waste. Up to now, the citizens of Timioara had no Others Glass 7% possibility at all to bring ecologically to a regular 5% Textils discharge, unused drugs, chemicals or pesticides. 5% Organic These problematic or dangerous substances burden 50% Debris even more the rest waste containers and the 6% recycling material containers. Used batteries can be returned free of charge at traders but some citizens still throw their old batteries furthermore in the domestic waste. Compared to wide parts of Romania, Timioara owns very good waste management solutions. In Fine particular, the introduction of the twocontainer Non-Organic waste system of recyclable materials and rest waste is 6% Paper & ecologically useful and economically necessary. Cardboard 9% Plastic The recovery of the recyclable materials from 12% waste enables to the disposal enterprise to achieve economic profits on the secondary raw material The biggest mass percentage part represents by market and, at the same time, to decrease the far the biological wastes, consisting mainly in landfill costs by the reduction of the raw waste culinary waste and fine organic waste smaller than amounts. 40 mm. As an average, the percentage of biological In this context, the economic necessity to waste in the domestic waste represents 48 percent. recover secondary raw materials with lasting effect The percentage of garden waste comes above all from the waste is proved in Romania: Although from houses with garden percentage from the wages are very low in Romania with approx. 400 outskirts areas and new building areas. Euros per month in direct comparison to Central In Timioara the percentage of plastics is found Europe. Nevertheless, machines, vehicles and their at 12 percent. This is almost twice as high fuels and auxiliary materials like stream, gasoline, compared to BadenWurttemberg. At glass, it gas or lubricant are similarly high like in Central behaves contradictorily in comparison to the Land. Europe. To this fact, it is also added the fact that

ISBN: 978-960-474-268-4 98 Recent Advances in Fluid Mechanics, Heat & Mass Transfer and Biology

the accession of Romania to the EU made other References: investments necessary to fulfill environmental [1] Bold, Octavian Valeriu, Managementul juridical items especially the technical and deeurilor solide, Editura Matrix Rom, 2003. economic requirements in construction and [2] Păunescu, Ioan, Gestionarea deeurilor production of disposal sites. For the problematic urbane, Editura Matrix Rom, 2002. materials of the households, like unused drugs or pesticides, nowadays any separate disposal ways are not installed. Although the expenses will probably rise for the waste economy, the fees for the citizens cannot be raised arbitrarily. Hence, other ways must be found to financially carry the necessary investment need for the structural change of the Romanian waste economy. One way leads to the rural regions that were barely opened until nowadays to the waste economy. Here a huge potential of recyclable materials get lost for the secondary raw material market. Another idle activity field is the biological waste from the domestic waste, barely supplied to the energetic or material recovery, i.e. the biological waste is barely supplied to the composting or the gas production for the electric energy and heat production. The highly missed percentage shows that all citizens do not yet understand the twocontainer system, although the readiness for separate collection was demanded by the proper initiative of the citizens compared with ISWA during the sampling of samples. This means for the disposal enterprise that recyclable materials reach in the rest waste bins and largely avoid a recovery through recyclable material containers. It would be necessary for a methodical access to the possible potentials of the waste economy in the first step to raise a loadable data amount. Here are included the statistical data regarding the apartment situation, the income situation or demographic data regarding the age structure, the budgetary size, as well as basic waste economy data regarding the container statistics or the weighing protocols of the regular discharge. The chances for a lasting, directed, structural change in Romania are divided among all involved actors of the state, enterprise and of the civil society. Therefore, only a longterm cooperation of all actors with the ability to link up fields of knowledge leads to a sustainable lastingness. Through investments and creativity, the ecological structural change become possible in order to set up innovative technology paths, whereby it is necessary that they are able to be connected to the existing structures. German enterprises might open sales opportunities, especially through their long standing experiences.

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