Benchmarking indicators to assess the level of circular economy strategy in Local Level

Sustainable waste management is an important global environmental agenda in the twenty- first century. The quantity of global waste increases as the population and the level of resource consumption rise over time. The increased generation of waste is also producing bigger environmental deprivation: in particular pollution of land, water, and air due to uncontrol and unsustainable waste disposal and management options. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the waste sector contributes less than 5% of global GHG emissions, which is very low compared to the energy and industrial sectors (more than 65%). Several tools are available for evaluating the environmental level and/or performance of waste management in an area using several benchmarking indicators, such as life cycle assessment, multi-criteria decision analysis, compositional analysis etc. Often these tools are the simplifications of the actual facts as the waste management systems are complex and difficult to generalise from case studies This research uses several benchmarking indicators such as compositional analysis of household waste, level of recycling index, participation in home composting, awareness activities, prevention activities in order to assess the level of the circular economy strategy in a Municipality (located in Cyprus) The results indicate that the more than 75% of the citizens are participated in the recycling door to door program but the recyclable waste that are delivered are not clear as there are several other wastes. For example, the concentration of other waste in PMD is more than 20% indicated that a door to door training program is needed. Also, the concentration of PMD and Papers in the household waste count more than 18% indicated that the waste sorting at source needs further attention. Home composting seems to be a promising method to treat leftovers and other yard wastes and minimized the volume of organic waste that are dumped in landfills. The results of the compositional analysis highlighted the need to develop actions to divert specific waste streams such as recyclable, green and food waste, as well as the development of awareness activities. The evaluation of the existing management plan indicated that among the main weaknesses is the level of educational program that are totally missed and the awareness activities while at the same time the prevention activities (beside home composting) needs further attention.