Citizen Monitoring on Municipal Waste Management Practices
Improving the process of waste management in Polish municipalities by including volunteers from the public.
Including the Public to Optimize Waste Management
Waste management remains a key environmental challenge in Poland. It is the responsibility of municipal authorities, but they have not been successful in achieving the expected recycling prospects set by domestic and EU policies. Different problems and irregularities within the waste management system must be addressed in order to improve the situation.
The objective of this project is to support municipalities in improving their waste management practices through involvement of citizens in local monitoring, and through participatory development of measures addressing the problems identified.
Activities of the Project
- Development of civic monitoring methodology, tools, and training materials for volunteers.
- Recruitment of citizen volunteers to be involved in monitoring of municipal waste management practices in their communities. Six municipalities of different size and type will be selected to be included in the monitoring activities.
- Volunteers will be trained to acquire knowledge about the municipal waste system in Poland.
- Citizen monitoring – field activities by volunteers with an on-going support from project experts.
- Processing the data from the monitoring and development of reports on waste management practices in the monitored municipalities.
- Development of local measures to deal with the problems identified during the monitoring. This includes working with the municipal authorities responsible for waste management to to address the diagnosed problems, hosting exploratory workshops in each municipality for citizens to discuss and better understand local waste management practices, and host round-tables in each municipality with local stakeholders to develop solutions to waste management problems in a participatory manner.
- Development of recommendations based on the collective report from the civic monitoring, a comparative cost analysis of waste treatment installations, and an analysis on the most effective measures supporting circular economy developed by Norwegian experts
- Promotion of the project with a national wrap-up event, a dedicated project website, publication of materials to educate the public about waste management, and a training webinar for interested individuals and organization.
IDN contributes to this project by making recommendations of good practices, which will address the most problematic areas and biggest challenges in waste management at the local level in Poland.
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