Biogas in Poland - Cities of Gdynia and Rzeszów
In Poland, the most common way to threat municipal waste is to dump it on landfill sites. Composting is only made very rarely and only for single households. Only very few projects are on-going on waste separation and adjacent biological processing. In Poland, waste water plants and landfills still burn off most of the biogas in flare stacks. If biogas is retrieved, it is usually used to produce electric and thermal energy.
The initial target city in Poland was Rzeszow, but due to political changes backing in the project was completely lost. Thus, UrbanBiogas project partners identified Gdynia as new target city.
Rzeszów is a city in south-eastern Poland with a population of 172,813 (2009). Currently no bio-waste is separately collected in Rzeszów. The wastes from the city area are transported to the landfill in Ostrów (about 60 km). Initially, Rzeszów was the target city of UrbanBiogas.
The municipal authorities in Rzeszów have commissioned a study researching alternative paths of waste disposal in the city. As a direct consequence of the study, a concept of thermal-disposal of municipal waste (incineration plant) has been officially adopted and thus became a guideline for local authorities involved in waste management. Thus, the authorities do not support a biogas project which is in their eyes much more expensive and in competition with the Waste – Incineration Plant. Moreover, there is strong conviction among the decision makers in Rzeszów that biogas plants and incineration plants exclude each other as solutions of waste management. The political backing for implementing the UrbanBiogas activities in Rzeszów was lost, although the UrbanBiogas partners tried very much to consider a biogas plant in Rzeszów.
As a consequence, the UrbanBiogas consortium decided in 2012 to implement its activities in a new target city in Poland: in Gdynia in the north of the country. This city was selected as the local framework seems to be promising and the political support available. Due to the introduction of new nationwide regulations the city introduced in 2013 source sorting of waste. There are two bins available for wet and dry waste. The test phase and the analysis of the source-separated waste provided valuable input on the implementation of suitable waste treatment for the organic MSW. The UrbanBiogas project assisted in this process with its expertise on anaerobic digestion technologies and defined a concept for the set-up of a biogas plant.
The waste in Gdynia is collected and managed by the company Ekodolina recycling or landfilling the waste. Besides the interest of Ekodolina on the WtB concept, also the transport company has signalled interest, as about 20 buses are already fuelled with CNG and could be also operated with biomethane.
Reports about Rzeszow and Gdynia
- Municipal waste management in Gdynia/Poland EN
- Municipal waste management in Rzeszow/Poland EN
- Summary of Biogas / Biomethane Training in Rzeszów – Poland EN
- Results of the survey on waste management in Rzeszów - Poland EN
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Podkarpacka Energy Management Agency Contact: Daniel Zapora |
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Polish Biogas Association Contact: Michel Surowiec |
