Filenews 6 November 2021 - by Angelos Nikolaou
As of February 2022, it is mandatory to install a GPS system for positioning in all trucks transporting excavation, construction and demolition waste, tankers for the transport of liquid waste, as well as in all vehicles of legal collectors / transporters of waste that are registered in the waste managers' file. To this end, a decree will be published in the Official Gazette of the Republic by the Minister of Agriculture, Costas Kadis, to combat the illegal dumping of waste and the pollution of the environment, with the consequent serious public health risks, provided that citizens pay significant costs for their transportation to management units and this is often not implemented, since they end up in small wastelands.
The decree concerns the installation of a global positioning device on vehicles that collect - transport waste on a professional basis. In the "collector-carrier" decree is any natural or legal person involved in the collection and/or transport of waste on a professional basis, which is registered in the waste manager file. Therefore, those who carry waste shipments such as clinical, vegetable oils, tires, plastics, paper, oils and fats, glass packaging, animal, pruning, sewage, waste electrical - electronic equipment, waste excavations, constructions and demolitions, etc., have an obligation.
The GPS device must be installed no later than three months after the entry into force of the decree, by an approved provider. The cost of installing and using the GPS device in the vehicles is borne by the carriers themselves.
It is noted that for the purposes of effective implementation, the Chief Inspector and the inspectors of the Department of Environment will have access, either in real time (online) and / or ex post, to the data of recording the GPS devices of the vehicles for the collection and / or transport of waste and the right to process them.
The installation and proper operation of the electronic positioning system (GPS) in the vehicles is the sole responsibility of the owner and the company that installs it. The GPS system records 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. The recording data must be available at all times to the inspectors. The GPS provider must provide the inspectors with immediate information in the event of the deactivation of the GPS tracking device and, if possible, the reasons for its decommissioning.
