Municipal waste in Pilsen used to be landfilled. “It is better to use waste for heat and electricity generation,” Radka Trylčová, a member of a regional council which is trying to make the waste-to-energy process policy, told EURACTIV Czech Republic. 

Radka Trylčová is a member of the regional council in the Pilsen Region, located in the western part of the Czech Republic. She is responsible for the environmental and agricultural agenda.

Trylčová participated in a roundtable on the circular economy organised by EURACTIV.cz.

Last year, your region adopted a new plan for waste management. What are the principles and goals of this document?

Our main goal is to reduce landfilling, increase waste separation and recycling. By 2020 we would like to recycle at least 50% of waste plastic, metal, glass and paper produced by households. When the usable components, bio-waste and dangerous substances are removed, the rest of municipal waste should be used for heat and electricity generation. We also aim at reducing the volume of biologically degradable municipal waste which is put into landfills. By 2020, this component should represent less than 35% of the overall volume of bio-waste produced in 1995.

The European Commission proposed a new EU target for recycling: 65% until 2030. What are the challenges for the Pilsen Region that this new package is going to bring?

If the EU target is adopted, providing a sufficient capacity to process separated waste will be the main challenge, not just for the Pilsen Region. We need it to be able to further use the separated waste. In an ideal situation, we would be able to reuse waste right at the place of production. However, at the moment we cannot see sufficient capacities either in the Czech Republic or Europe. Most of the separated waste is exported to Asia. If the level of waste separation increases in the EU and new processing facilities will not be provided, our dependence on non-EU facilities will be even higher.

Read full interview in Engish.