Thanks to a new waste management facility built in the city of Olszowa, Greater Poland, the amount of garbage stored in landfills was significantly reduced and the degree of recycling increased.
- 23 November 2015
Olszowa waste management facility serves a region with 137 000 inhabitants. It operates according to the highest EU environmental standards and helps to protect the natural environment in our region. A very important aspect of the investment is also the awareness campaign. We need to teach our kids that it doesn’t take much to protect the environment – a little bit of good will is enough to reduce the amount of garbage that will be left for future generations.
The main goal of this project was to significantly improve the environment by increasing economic and ecological effectiveness of the local waste management system. The project also focused on promoting pro-environmental attitudes among local citizens.
Transforming landfills
The main part of the project was building a waste management facility with a 39 600 tonnes waste treatment capacity each year, a garbage collection spot and a reloading spot in the city of Smolna. Olszowa now has one of the most modern and energy efficient waste management facilities in Europe equipped with high tech waste solutions like optical separators, metal eliminators and aerobic biostabilisation.
An important advantage using aerobic biostabilisation is that it intensifies the breakdown of organic matter in landfills by boosting the microorganisms necessary for anaerobic decomposition of waste. That means landfills don’t grow as quickly and can be repurposed sooner. Thanks to the building of seven landfills, a joined surface of 13.4 hectares has already been closed and will be re-cultivated.
Ecological awareness
The project also had an educational campaign that promoted ecological awareness. Special leaflets with the explanation on how to collect and segregate garbage were distributed which lead to the amount of recycled material collected in special bins increasing by 300 %.
The promotional campaign was also aimed at kids from local schools – there was an open contest of ecological awareness organised to engage kids and to raise the ecological awareness among them.
Total investment and EU funding
Total investment for the project “Modernisation of waste management system in the southern part of the county Wielkopolska and Oleśnicki district” is PLN 82 883 552 (approximately EUR 19 531 097 ), of which the EU’s European Regional Development Fund is contributing PLN 49 360 437 (approximately EUR 11 631 541) from the Operational Programme “Greater Poland” for the 2007 to 2013 programming period.