Principles of municipal waste management in Poland and selected regions of Europe

High level of production and consumption in member-countries of the European Union is connected with generating a considerable amount of waste. In individual EU member-countries various methods aiming at decreasing the amount of generated waste are implemented. The current situation in Poland, and the best practical solutions introduced in some European regions have been presented in the paper. These solutions were put in place, mainly to fulfill the EU or country's regulations. The priority of municipal waste management measures is to prevent and minimize its generation. Decisions on preventing waste generation should be made as early as at the stage of product designing and manufacturing. The basic principle of proper municipal waste management is to create a system of regional solutions, which includes all the elements of waste management and relates them to the local conditions.