The problem of preparation the food packaging waste for recycling in Poland.

Abstract: Waste segregation ‘at source’ has become more and more common in many countries all around the world, including Poland. There is a divergence in the literature about whether householders’ segregation efforts should be included in a cost-benefit analysis of recycling system. Most papers concerning this issue is based on situation of highly developed countries. Some studies ignore the problem assuming that the efforts are balanced by satisfaction of contribution to the sustainability. However, such an assumption seems to be not suitable for reality of post-communist Central European countries, like Poland. This paper provides the view of the problem from the perspective of Polish conditions. On the basis of experimental data, a simple approach to assess the profitability of washing the food packaging waste is presented. The experiments involved over a hundred people with various washing-up habits. The methodology applied allows to avoid controversial assumptions concerning moral aspects of recycling. The best result has been obtained in case of cleaning the glass waste with cold water. In other cases the average washing cost has exceed the market value of recyclable materials. The results point out a need to instruct Polish householders how to treat used food packaging waste. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]