Environmental comparison of solid waste management systems: A case study of the cities of Iasi, Romania and Enschede, Netherlands.

Sustainable approach to solid waste management in any region can be achieved by integrated waste management systems. The waste management systems differ in developed and developing countries. The Netherlands has a unique waste management system, the Dutch approach to waste consist in “avoid waste as much as possible, recover the valuable raw materials from any waste that is created, try to generate energy by incinerating the residual waste, and only then dump what is left”. Netherlands is today among the leading countries in terms of waste management and especially in recycling solid waste. Compared with the waste situation from Netherlands the waste management in România is far behind. Landfilling of municipal solid waste is still the most used method to disposal of waste in Romania. The solid waste management sector in România is expected to develop in the coming years. In this paper environmental impact evaluation of these two different systems was realized with GaBi4 software.