Charles Explorer logo
🇬🇧

Physical Supply and Use Tables: the Most Comprehensive Way for Reporting Waste Flows

Publication |
2018

Abstract

Material flow analysis is a useful tool to measure resource use and mitigate the related problems. In order to increase its analytical potential, it is advisable to construct physical input-output tables. (PIOT).

PIOT, defined by SEEA (UN et al., 2014), are based on two basic building stones: physical supply tables and physical use tables (PSUT). Besides other information, PSUT include data on waste and secondary materials.

We collected waste and secondary material data for the Czech Republic, 2014, and incorporated them into various PSUT Tables. We argue that PSUT are a useful tool for organizing and depicting these data in a clear and comprehensive way.

We constructed a Sankey diagram based on PSUT which provides some important insights into waste and secondary material flows in the Czech Republic. These insights can be used in reports assessing waste flows in the Czech Republic and for further shaping and updating of waste policies.

We therefore think that our argument on usefulness of PSUT for organizing data on waste and secondary materials proved valid.