PROGRAMME

Waste management has always been a critical problem globally. In the solid urban waste sector, generally, waste production is related to the people's lifestyles. The spread of COVID-19 has led to a drastic and unusual change in people's lifestyles. The adoption of a prolonged lockdown phase, with the closure of various production activities, the establishment of safety protocols with the use of personal protective equipment and the forced sanitation of environments, has changed our life habits and resulting in the production of a new specific category of waste. The paper presents and propose analysis indicator as a tool to assist decision-makers in the management of solid waste treatment plants. The activities are carried out considering the Campania Region (Italy) as territory. The changes in the waste production and components due to the pandemic are used for the analysis and discussed in the research. The experimental activities are made by considering three different time periods and related regulatory constraints: pre-pandemic, first total lockdown and subsequent partial block. The correlation between the proposed analysis indicators and the people’s lifestyles are investigated. The work contributes to the solid waste management sector by suggesting innovative analysis indicators for planning the construction and optimization of the treatments plants.