Modelling Waste Flows in Mountain Huts to Support Circular Strategies: The Case Study of Rifugio Stoppani, Italy

Mountain huts face unique challenges in waste management due to their altitude, accessibility, and seasonal variability. However, quantitative data on waste generation in these contexts remain limited, hindering evidence-based decision-making. This study proposes a replicable methodology to quantify waste generation in mountain huts and to assess the feasibility of on-site recycling. The framework is applied to a one-year case study of Rifugio Stoppani, selected as a representative case study within the Italian Alpine Club hut classification system. The method combines unstructured interviews, structured collection of product-consumption data, and a workflow that models a typical year of hut attendance, enabling the reconstruction of annual waste flows by material. Results show that plastic and glass represent more than 75% of the total waste mass and that even relatively small quantities generate significant logistical burdens, requiring approximately 65 h of annual transport due to the absence of local collection systems. The study further evaluates the feasibility of on-site plastic recycling through low-scale injection moulding, demonstrating the potential to convert locally generated waste into functional objects and reduce transport effort by up to 83%. The proposed framework provides a transferable method for waste flow modelling in remote mountain infrastructures and supports the evaluation of localized circular economy strategies across the Italian Alpine Club hut network.