Energy Recovery from Municipal Biodegradable Waste in a Circular Economy

Faced with the challenges of the energy crisis and the need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, Poland needs to increase the share of renewable energy sources in the energy mix. Development trends in the waste-to-energy market reflect the global energy transition. Poland generates about 13 million tonnes of municipal waste annually, a significant percentage of which is biodegradable waste that should be converted into biogas or used in thermal processes to produce electricity and heat. Despite the benefits of recovering energy from waste, there are technological, economic, and regulatory barriers that limit the development of this sector in Poland. Creating an efficient waste management system is one of the most important challenges today in terms of energy, the environment, and the economy. The circular economy is a fundamental element of the European Union’s environmental policy, including the European Green Deal, the main objective of which is to combat the carbon footprint. The amount of energy produced is decisively influenced by the structure of the deposited waste and the share of the calorific fraction in the total mass of municipal waste. This study aimed to develop forecasts for biodegradable municipal waste, using the simulation and optimisation of the exponential Brownian smoothing constant, and to estimate the value of recovered energy. The forecasts were based on data on selective waste collection from different provinces of Poland. The study reveals that the forecast for biodegradable municipal waste in the coming years shows an increasing trend, amounting to 2,696,500 tonnes in 2030, which will allow for a significant increase in energy recovery.