Poles avoid paying for garbage. The climate ministry announces changes
In the climate and environment ministry, work on regulations to improve the control of waste management fees has started. Local governments complain that they are struggling with irregularities in junk declarations.
The currently applicable provisions of the Act on maintaining cleanliness and order in municipalities provide for several mechanisms enabling municipalities to control the correctness of data submitted in declarations on the amount of fee for municipal waste management. However, these are ineffective tools. Local governments complain that they are struggling with irregularities in declarations. The Ministry of Climate and Environment wants to change this state of affairs.
No more avoiding paying for garbage?
The deputy head of the ministry Anita Sowińska in response to a parliamentary interpellation admits that the ministry is working on solutions in cooperation with local governments and other state institutions. Legislative mechanisms are analyzed that may increase the effectiveness of fees enforcement and limit the problem of avoiding them by some residents.
As the “Local Government Portal” notes, currently the scope of competences of municipalities in this area is quite narrow and limited by the provisions of the GDPR. However, it turns out that the question of using data from various databases/registers has already been discussed at the team’s meetings with the participation of representatives of the Office for Personal Data Protection (UODO).
– As part of further consultations with representatives of UODO – announces the deputy head of the climate and environment.
One of the important problems of waste management is the number of real estate inhabitants in junk declarations. Persons living in a given premises are not entered in the declaration and, as a result, do not incur fees for waste management.
Work on the amendment to the provisions of the Act on maintaining cleanliness and order in municipalities has already started in the climate and environment. Currently, the project is at the stage of intraressort work. The scope of changes and adopted solutions will be available after transferring it for public consultations.
Poles segregate rubbish
Meanwhile, according to the recent SW Research survey for “Wprost”, almost 80 percent. Poles declare that he segregates garbage. Only 2 percent respondents admitted that it did not fulfill this obligation, and close to every fifth explains that he segregates only some types of waste. This may be related to the fact that many people in the case of some products or packaging have a problem with indicating the right container.
