700 municipalities face a huge problem. Fines will hit residents.

• Representatives of municipalities in Podhale pointed out several problems that prevent them from achieving the assumed levels of waste recovery and recycling.
• Local government officials also demand that additional categories of waste be included in the achieved recycling levels, e.g. used tires, agricultural waste, construction waste and the fraction sent to incineration plants for energy recovery.
• Local governments have called for the integration of the deposit system for bottles and cans with municipal systems - so that raw materials collected in stores are included in the levels achieved by municipalities.

During the August meeting of the Tatra Municipalities Convention, local government officials addressed the issue of waste management.

As the Zakopane County Office emphasizes, "the urgent issue was to develop and adopt a common position of all local governments of the Tatra County regarding taking actions aimed at changing the regulations on maintaining cleanliness and order in municipalities in the context of regulating the required levels of waste recycling."

"A municipality isn't an independent entity; it's our residents. If a municipality is fined several hundred thousand złoty, it's actually a penalty for the residents," said Anita Żegleń, mayor of the Poronin municipality, as quoted by podhale24.pl. "If 700 municipalities in Poland are unable to achieve adequate recycling levels, that means there's a clear problem," Żegleń added.

Representatives of municipalities in Podhale pointed out several problems that prevent them from achieving the assumed levels of waste recovery and recycling.

The first is the lack of statutory provisions on the costs of collecting and managing packaging waste by producers.

Local government officials also demand that additional waste categories be included in the achieved recycling levels, e.g.:

• worn tires,
• waste from agricultural production,
• construction waste,
• fraction sent to the incinerator for energy recovery.

They also called for the integration of the deposit system for bottles and cans with municipal systems - so that raw materials collected in stores are included in the levels achieved by municipalities.

Local government officials also want companies responsible for collecting and transporting waste to be held responsible for the lack of recycling.

Representatives of Tatra municipalities recalled that the EU directive requires member states to achieve a 55% recycling rate by 2025, with municipalities expected to reach 65% by 2035. They explained that Polish regulations assume that the requirements are to increase by 1 percentage point from 2025 onwards, so local government officials proposed maintaining a constant 55% threshold between 2025 and 2034. In their opinion, this would give municipalities more time to adapt to the requirements.

Local government officials want to introduce simpler mechanisms for holding rule breakers accountable, for example, through payment orders. Currently, municipalities are responsible for achieving recycling targets, even if the actual waste processing is handled by private companies.

- reported podhale.24.pl.

Local government officials from the Zakopane district also announced actions aimed at making the waste collection system more fair and actually supporting recycling, instead of burdening residents financially.