The IVL Swedish Environmental Research Institute and Novian Systems have developed the WAMPS information system to help plan, model, and implement various waste management scenarios. This tool allowed the organizations of the eight Baltic Sea States to compare different waste management scenarios and choose the most cost-effective one.
Situation
The IVL Swedish Environmental Research Institute was established by Swedish State and Business in 1966 to build a sustainable society. The institute pursues this goal through science, turning environmental problems into opportunities, and linear processes into a circular economy.
At the beginning of the second decade of the 20th century, a situation arose in which the amount of municipal solid waste continued to grow. This was despite declining amounts of waste going to landfills and increasing sorting, re-use, biological treatment, and recycling of materials and energy.
Problem
A more efficient waste management process was needed, leading to the development of a waste management planning and decision-making tool.
During the project “RECO Baltic 21 Tech – Towards Sustainable Waste Management in the Baltic Sea Region”, Novian Systems (previously – Algoritmų Sistemos) worked together with the IVL Swedish Environmental Research Institute as a software developer.
Solution
WAMPS (Waste Management Planning System) software was developed to assess different waste management scenarios in different situations and their impact on the environment. This waste management planning decision-making tool allows one to analyze specific conditions, provide recommendations with mathematical and graphical images.
Mathematical assessment of waste management and life cycles using software is widely used to make waste management decisions. It has also been used to study the life cycle of solid waste management processes that cause the impact of human activities on the environment.
Result
The integrated model allowed for a more efficient assessment of scenarios for the development of various waste management systems in environmental and economic terms.
The integration of the sensitivity factor increased the reliability of the analysis results. Also, its introduction has made it possible to identify the factors that are important for developing more sustainable waste management strategies more efficiently.
Besides, the model identifies the most appropriate waste management options and their combinations, thus allowing the combination of seemingly competing approaches such as recycling and incineration.
With the new facility, municipalities and regions were able to compare different waste management scenarios and choose the most cost-effective one. WAMPS was used by project partner organizations in 8 countries: Sweden, Estonia, Germany, Belarus, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, and Russia.
