Summary:

A total activity cycle of all municipal landfill sites operated in the malopolskie province was assessed in the paper using a variant method. For this purpose, two prognoses of municipal waste generation were developed for the 2008-2048 time horizon, which allowed to assesses the quantity of generated waste stream. Subsequently, various scenarios related to the management of the waste stream in the adopted time horizon were prepared. The suggested scenarios: status quo (SQ), realistic (REAL) and optimistic (OPT) determined the possibilities for various strategies (policies) of recovery and disposal of wastes, primarily based on various methods of their recycling, composting and deposition. On this basis the amount of municipal wastes sent to landfills was assessed. The quantities of wastes deposited on landfills were computed considering waste residues from individual technologies. While working on the scenarios , the authors were guided by the ways of municipal waste stream management used in the EU-15 countries and by the assumptions resulting from documents on the startegies of waste management. Analysis of landfill activity cycle revealed an alarming situation connected with fast filling up of the existing landfills in the malopolskie province. This situation concerns all scenarios, both for prognosis I and II. Reduction of wastes sent to landfill slightly increases the landfill activity cycle, but doe not solve the problem of waste storage. So, in order to ensure the continuity of waste stream management, any actions connected with the choice of localisation and securing terrains for landfill sites should be started immediately.