Project Background and Strategy

Due to national and foreign subsidies in Poland, the market for environmental technology has markedly increased. However, following risks have to be faced as experiences in Germany show:

- in spite of techological progress, investments in this sector are low; - for most of the production processes primary resources are used; - new disposal sites are built without considerating recovery possibilities in xisting plants; - waste management systems take only one assessment parameter into account.

As one of the first projects initiated by INCREASE with grants of the German Ministry for Research bmbf+f and the German-polish Foundation , the main objective is to transfer specific German know-how in the sector of waste management to Poland avoiding mistakes done in the past. Furthermore the project results will contain recommendations how to create waste flow systems founded on an individual combination of technological, ecological and economical parameters as shown for waste oil in figure 1.

Figure 1: Material Flows for the Disposal of Waste Oils in Germany (1996)

In this project, major emphasis is put on the development of general aspects, i.e. how to manage used chemicals in an environmental friendly manner with regard to technical and economic boundary conditions. To verify the strategy of the opposite figure 1, the following waste categories have been selected:

• used oils and oil-water emulsions
• photochemicals
• acids and bases
• solvents
• used antifreezes
• used brake fluids.

Figure 2: Project Strategy

Structure of Management System

For the analysis of technical feasibility and environmental impacts within waste disposal networks, material and energy balances are calculated by a computer program, designed according to the structure shown in figure 3. Parallelly, each process is characterized by specific cost factors, which are finally aggregated to cost scenarios. To build up and compare different management systems, the same parameters must be detected for each network level. Due to insufficient information, a fourth level cannot be created for the moment.

Figure 3: Structure of Waste Flow System

Research and Status quo

At first, both the legislative background, the characteristics, and the amounts for the above wastes were investigated by primary and secondary statistical methods. The data have been classified according to different categories such as voievodships, industrial branches (EKD), waste categories (EWC) etc. (for some general results see figure 4). Based on the German state of the art, possible recovery processes were identified, eg:

• filtration and separation
• vaporation and raffination
• co-combustion in cement plants
• industrial waste incineration.

The research will be completed by a comparison between Polish and German data, by the listing of locations appropriate for utilizing waste and the identification of logistic systems.

Figure 4: Investigated Waste Amounts and Composition in four Polish Regions for Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises

Further Actions

In compliance with our strategy and the experience of this project the following actions are envisaged:

• search of geographic data (plant sites) and available logistic systems
• calculation of waste diposal chains and ecological / economic assessment
• feasibility evidence for one waste-specific disposal chain by pilot tests
• recommendations for an ecologic and economical waste management system
• development of management systems for other wastes (Municipal Solid Waste, wood, etc.).

Our Partners...

...in Poland:

• Institute of Wastes Management IGO, Katowice
• Institute for Heavy Organic Sythesis ICSO, Kedzierzyn-Kozle
• Z. U. O. (LOBBE), Lublin
• Rafineria Czechowice (racer), Czechowice

...in Germany:

• Rütgers VFT Handel, Duisburg
• Ch. Scheele International, Olpe
• Technisches Büro Lobbe, Döttingen

Posterpräsentation von Fraunhofer UMSICHT Poznán / Polen, 23. November 1999