Millions of złoty per year. This is how much municipalities will pay for waste management

• The municipal waste management system should be balanced.
• The decision-making body is entitled to make a decision on subsidies to the system only if statutory conditions are met.
• The statutory provisions do not specify the deadline within which the commune should adopt a resolution on the subsidy for the waste management system.

Last year, expenditure on waste management in Świdnica amounted to over PLN 28.7 million - the city hall summed up the costs and actions taken to maintain cleanliness in the city in its annual report.

Total expenditure for this purpose amounted to PLN 28.7 million in 2024. Most of this amount - over PLN 24.7 million, came from payments from residents, obtained based on data from so-called waste declarations. The missing amount must be covered from the city budget. In 2024, it was PLN 3.9 million, but for 2025 the commune must prepare as much as PLN 10.4 million. This is how much it will add to the system, reducing the overall budget.

Local government has very few options for financing the waste management system. These are de facto resident fees and city budget subsidies. Being aware that both the management costs and the scope of obligations imposed on municipalities by the legislator are growing, we must organize the system in such a way that the city is clean

- explains Krystian Werecki, deputy mayor of Świdnica, responsible for the work of the Waste Management Department of the City Hall.

This, in turn, as he explains, depends on many factors: the frequency of waste collection from bin shelters, accessible segregation methods, the system for reporting places that require tidying up, and the awareness of the residents themselves.

- We are trying to continuously tighten the system, so that each household pays for waste in proportion to the number of people living there, not registered there - adds the vice president.

As reported by the commune, in 2024 the declarations included 4,213 people less than the number of people registered in Świdnica.

- Thanks to the growing awareness of residents and the efforts of city services, this difference was reduced by 880 people, thus obtaining an additional several hundred thousand zlotys, i.e. twice as much as the year before - the city council calculated.

Jastrzębie Zdrój may also be forced to pay extra for the waste system. In this case, it is about PLN 3.5 million. However, this is not the result of the city office's choice, but of the councilors' decision.

According to the draft resolution, the waste collection fee was to increase from the current PLN 30 to PLN 34 per person per month. The new rate was to come into effect on July 1. However, councilors were opposed.

Meanwhile, calculations by the Department of Municipal Economy clearly show that the current fee is not sufficient to cover the costs of the waste collection and management system.

- Failure to adopt this resolution means that we must add to the system from the city budget. And this means shifts in other areas, including primarily the investment budget - explained the president of Jastrzębie-Zdrój, Michał Urgoł for tujastrzebie.pl.

Although he did not indicate specific investments that the city would have to give up, cuts in street reconstruction were mentioned during the session.

Residents will also indirectly pay for waste management in Andrychów. The local government calculated that in order to balance the system, it should increase the fee to PLN 42.20 per person per month. With the current fee of PLN 26.50, this would be a significant difference. The city council did not decide on such an increase, but proposed to increase the rate only to PLN 36.50, and cover the rest from the commune budget. Here, too, however, the councilors changed the content of the resolution and the new fees for waste collection were set at PLN 33 per person, which means that the commune will add about PLN 2 million to the system.

Subsidies are a common phenomenon, it is estimated that even about 1200 local governments have to pay into the municipal waste management system. This means that they pay into a system that should balance itself. Municipalities should neither "make money" on waste nor have to pay into it.

The Regional Chamber of Audit in Kielce explained in December last year that the municipal waste management system should be balanced and the decision-making body is entitled to make a decision on subsidies to the system "only when statutory premises occur".

As the RIO added, the legal regulation resulting from the content of art. 6r section 2da of the Act on maintaining cleanliness and order in municipalities is an exception to the principle of self-balancing of the waste management system and should therefore apply only in special and exceptional situations.