Informational determinants of municipal waste management in the commune – a case study

Abstract

Since July 2013 the waste management system in Poland has been functioning under new economic and political conditions. Its functioning is determined by the rate of waste fee paid by residents and information on different elements of the integrated system, which has to be created in each commune. The aim of this paper is an attempt to assess the informational barriers (especially in terms of technical-economic and financial data) affecting municipal waste management. The thesis of this research is recognition of information as the most basic factor of creating waste management according to rules of circular economy. The specificity of technological, organizational, market and administrative processes in waste management, the amount of subjects and chains (e.g. from a household to users of energy from waste incineration) cause that there are many informational limitations and informational asymmetry. The concept of the paper involves the following: a description of municipal waste management in the informational aspect, usage of information from accounting to measure financial and economic indexes, specificity of collecting the necessary information as well as creating the worksheet with information on municipal waste management in a commune and a municipal company. The added value of this paper is usage of existing reports concerning waste management and financial reports to create an integrated informational packet (worksheet) for a commune and a company, as well as pointing out the possibilities of application of such a packet for assessment of efficiency and effectivity of undertaken activities. The paper is of conceptual-methodological nature and it fits in regional aspects of informational society development and digital economy.