Assessment of biowaste losses through unsound waste management practices in rural areas and the role of home composting

The paper examines the biowaste management issues across rural areas of Romania in the context of poor waste management infrastructure in the last decade (2003-2012). Biowaste is the main fraction of municipal waste, thus a proper management is a key challenge in order to sustain a bioeconomy in the near future. The amount of biowaste generated and uncollected by waste operators is generally uncontrolled disposed if not recovered through home composting. The paper points out the role of home composting in diverting the biowaste from wild dumps and landfills for the regions covered or not by waste collection services. Home composting and the biowaste losses are further assessed based on several scenarios (worse-case, pessimistic, realistic, optimistic) where the net loads of greenhouse gasses (GHG) are calculated at national and regional levels. The transition of home composting techniques, from open piles to plastic bins with respect to standard guidelines will improve the home composting performance in terms of compost quality and net GHG’s savings, supporting a bio-based economy which will lead towards a sustainable rural development. Regional disparities are revealed across Romanian counties and the paper opens new research perspectives regarding which options should be adopted by counties and rural municipalities in the biowaste management process.