zemeunvalsts.lv introduction
In the interview, several very important practical aspects of waste management were repeatedly emphasised across a number of issues. These concern both the attitudes of residents (which are often not easy, simple, or quick to change), the further use of collected material, and changes in established habits (of buyers, producers, and sellers). In terms of policy, the discussion is focused more on the availability of containers, for example, while forgetting about the origin or production of waste... The reminder in the conversation about the European Union's 2035 target gives cause for serious reflection and asks – what exactly should be done in 2023, 2024, and in the years that follow. Aside from a few individual activities, the talk at the political level is about the need for ambitious plans. What are they, or what will they be? Is this clear to a resident of Latvia in the Pierīga region, in Cibla, Dundaga, or Nīca... And will these plans be clear, understandable, and simple?
Existing landfill sites must turn into circular economy hubs over the next 10 years, where the waste brought in is transformed into raw materials for the production of new products, especially since only 10% of collected waste will be allowed to be landfilled.
This is what Gints Kukainis, Chairman of the Board of SIA ZAAO, says in the interview. He admits that there are two potential directions for waste management: one is to invest in very small-scale and low-capacity processing equipment, and the other is longer transportation routes to regional processing centres.
What are the most important issues to be solved in waste management right now?
The transformation from 11 landfill sites to five regional waste management centres, which must eventually become circular economy hubs. They will be crucial for achieving the goal set by the European Union – to landfill no more than 10% of generated municipal waste by 2035, and to send at least 65% of collected municipal waste for recycling.
The second issue I want to emphasise is the balance between private and public companies in the waste management sector. In terms of the number of residents served, private waste managers serve 62% of Latvia's population – nearly 1.18 million – while municipal companies serve only 38%, or 691,000 residents. The situation in Latvia is in a relatively good balance, which should not be disrupted. Even if municipal companies make a profit, it must be directed towards improvements and the introduction of innovations, as is the case, for example, with ZAAO. In contrast, the owners of private companies can do as they please with the profit – reinvest it in the waste sector by building processing plants, or take it as dividends and use it as investment elsewhere in Latvia.
In my opinion, the most negative outcome for the Latvian economy is if a (waste management) company has foreign owners who take this profit out to their home countries; our national economy loses this money entirely. The most significant difference between municipal and private capital waste managers is that private capital companies mostly work in large cities, while municipal companies work in the regions. Since population density is much higher in cities than in rural areas, one only needs to travel an average of 45 km to fill one lorry with waste, whereas in the regions, one would have to travel up to 200 km for the same purpose.
A higher number of kilometres travelled automatically increases the waste collection service tariff.
Exactly! And that is the most paradoxical thing, because residents in Riga and the Pierīga region have the highest incomes but actually have the lowest waste management tariffs, while residents in the regions have a significantly lower income level but are essentially forced to pay more for the same service. At the same time, solutions are being sought and have already been found to ensure that waste collection tariffs in the regions are not as high; for example, containers are emptied once a month or, in some cases, once a quarter, especially for types of waste for which collection is free for residents, while organic waste is composted where it is produced.
We have drawn on experience from the European Union and other countries where biodegradable waste (brown containers) is managed in very different ways. Our regional waste management plan provides for separate collection of biodegradable waste in villages and towns with a population of over 1,000. Undoubtedly, collecting waste from a single house located in the middle of a forest will be very expensive for its owner, or the costs of such a service will have to be covered by other consumers. In my opinion, decisions must be economically sound and rational, not just for the sake of ticking a box.
In rural areas, the population continues to shrink, the number of kilometres travelled by waste collection transport does not change, and there is inflation, which only further 'compels us to forecast' higher waste management tariffs, especially for those who are unwilling to learn how to sort waste correctly. Correct waste sorting is one of the reasons for a relatively low service tariff; this is clearly proven by foreign experience, which will sooner or later 'come' to Latvia as well.
An essential question is what to do with the currently non-recyclable plastic (the amount of which continues to increase every year)? In a situation where non-recyclable plastic packaging is increasing significantly and there is nowhere to put it, it can be prepared as RDF material (for use in boiler houses as fuel) and energy can be recovered; otherwise, it is landfilled, and an additional natural resource tax of 95 €/t is paid. This is not good management, especially if heat and electricity can be obtained from the material currently being buried in a waste mountain, and especially if the prices of these resources have risen significantly over the last year. The sharp rise in energy resource prices essentially forces Latvia to acknowledge that waste is also an energy resource, which we are currently just 'brutally' burying in landfills.
The National Waste Management Plan for 2021-2028 provides for five stations where waste is used as fuel, though only the project in Ventspils is at the development stage. Currently, some RDF material is used at the Schwenk cement plant in Brocēni, but... it must be understood that it is more profitable for them to import this material from abroad, where they are even paid to take it. There is currently no movement in the context of the waste-to-energy plant marked out in Vidzeme.
Could Latvia, at the European Union level, propose examining the issue of banning the use of plastic packaging in the EU that is non-recyclable or for which there is no demand for the recycled products on the global market, for example, from 2028?
Waste managers are at the end of the chain and are forced to deal with the situation that has arisen, but in any case, this would be an ideal solution that would significantly reduce the volume of waste ending up in landfills. At the same time, I am not convinced of the ability of Latvian statesmen to not only 'raise' (bring to the agenda) this issue in Brussels but also to achieve a corresponding solution, even though this is perhaps the best approach, as it reduces the amount of non-recyclable or unwanted raw materials ending up in waste containers. It should be recalled that the EU has set a very specific target for municipal waste recycling in 2035 – at least 65% of the mass collected. To look for solutions to this issue, just this September, we held the waste recycling promotion hackathon DaibeZero for the second time, for which 15 teams applied, and 10 made it to the final. These are not ideas we are looking for solely for ZAAO's needs, but we are thinking about the entire Latvian waste management sector.
Could we perhaps call on producers at all levels to choose environmentally friendly or recyclable packaging?
This is already being done by educating students, thereby creating pressure on producers directly from the consumer (demand) side, both today and even more so in the future. There are good examples, for instance, SIA VLT operating in Valmiera, which produces egg packaging from waste paper. Unfortunately, when choosing packaging, the most important criteria are still price, appearance, or convenience of use, while the criterion of recyclability becomes a fourth or even lower-order issue. If this valuation could be changed, that would already be progress, and much less unusable material would arrive at waste management centres.
Of course, there are tasks that both residents and circular economy centres can accomplish through waste sorting at all levels. The volume of biodegradable waste is estimated at around 30-40%, even though it is currently significantly lower because there is no high-quality sorting, which is why a portion ends up in landfill mountains. Conversely, if we cannot do anything, the packaging will be non-recyclable, we will store it in landfills, and we will pay an ever-higher tax instead of obtaining products to use in our own households.
People's thinking must change – waste is not just a problem for waste managers. It is the environment in which we live. The decisions we make today, both individually in our daily lives by sorting or not sorting waste, and at the state level by adopting various regulatory acts, determine what kind of Latvia we are building, and the world of the future for ourselves and future generations.
Is there a fear of making decisions without the countless ('n-th') expert opinions?
Exaggerated fear and worry that 'something might go wrong' or 'someone might make a complaint'. An example – Getliņi grows tomatoes in its greenhouses, which take up about 2% of the market in Latvia, but from time to time, various Latvian state institutions question this activity because they believe a public company should not be involved in it. So – it is better for the heat generated from waste management to be released into the air! This confirms that in Latvia, there is sometimes a lack of ability to look at processes logically, because everything is 'levelled' according to a single condition, ignoring specific matters. As much as I do not want to, I cannot help but agree with the often-heard conclusions that we have created a system in which there are more supervisors than doers. Until we change this system, we will not be able to move forward quickly.