Economic aspects of urban wastes processing with attitude to the world’s leading countries (case study: Arak metropolis)

In current research, the economic aspects of municipal wastes recycling in order to supply the raw materials, compost and energy production have been studied. In this regard, the status of waste management in the world’s progressive industrialized countries as suitable patterns has been studied to use their knowledge and experience as well as the returned economic incomes. To achieve the goal, the complete information was collected about the existent status of collection, separation procedure, recycling and disposal of Arak urban wastes through conducting some meetings and interviews with the authorities of the municipality, environmental protection and municipal wastes of Arak city. Also, field visits from recycling plant and disposal site of Arak municipal wastes were performed. The results of the research show that the best countries in the waste management are located in the west and north of the Europe, which land fill less than 5% of their wastes. Also according to valid international statistics, the highest percentage of recycling of municipal wastes is about 63% in Austria. In the case of Arak urban wastes, despite about 20% of them can be recyclable first and about 70% is converted to compost, due to the lack of proper waste management, it has little economic advantage. At present, the economic revenues of recycled materials at the waste recycling plant including metal containers, plastics and plastic bottles, paper wastes and cartons are insignificant with a low economic income, covering only the current costs of the landfill site.