Dr inż. Zbigniew Daniel

Prof. dr hab. inż. Tadeusz Juliszewski

Dr hab. inż. Zbigniew Kowalczyk

Dr inż. Mateusz Malinowski

Dr hab. inż. Zygmunt Sobol

Dr inż. Paulina Wrona

Civilizational development of the rural areas makes at these areas specific environmental problems that were recognized as a problems of urbanization and industrialization in cities. Agricultural and food industry generate each year 10 million Mg of waste in Poland. It isn’t possible to unequivocally define the weight of waste which are generated in agriculture and food industry. Many of the waste owners give these waste to treatment and disposal as a municipal waste. In the result, they don’t pay product fee or recycling fee and they don’t make an annual report about waste. We should developed a new method for gather information about the quan-tity and quality of waste to characterize the solid waste management in the agri-cultural sector and food industry. This article contains a questionnaire – "waste card". It can be used to characterize the mass and composition of waste generated in the agricultural sector and food industry. Person which will complete "waste card" (farmer or businessman) gives the name of waste, place of generating, weight, dimensions, mass calculated per unit of reference (year, area, etc.) and the way in which waste is treated by him. Respondent usually receives a list of expected waste (from researchers) to make this activity more reliably. Next person (Research Fellow, Environmental Specialist) elaborating a questionnaire completes a all information about recommended methods of treatment, code, and type of waste (according to the catalog of waste and other legislation documents). This solution doesn’t require from farmer (businessman) the knowledge about the codes and groups of waste (as opposed to the solution adopted in the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development Guidelines). The possibility of using the questionnaire was validated in four sectors of agriculture and food industry. The information obtained about waste generated in agriculture and food industry will enable the development an analyses of waste management condition. Consequently, this will enable an Action Plan to reduce consumption of energy and material in agricultural production and whole food sector. As a result of material consumption reduce, we expected to minimize the amount of waste generated in the various branches of the food industry. This kind of activities are desirable in EU waste directives and national law.