Filenews 7 July 2022 - by Angelos Nicolaou
[This is the intended new refuse collection scheme, whereby householders will need to purchase bags from the council for their general refuse. There are a lot of questions and potential issues and concerns a to whether this will lead to increased fly tipping as some refuse to purchase bags!]
In two years from now, if approved today by the Plenary Session of the Parliament, the regulations on waste (management of municipal waste by the local authorities) will be able for households to drastically reduce the cost of garbage they pay today. Based on the current data and the implementation of the pilot program in Aglantzia, a family that previously paid €170 today pays less than €100 with the prepaid bag system. It is noted that this cost also includes organics, which are disposed of along with the rest of the garbage since no solutions have been provided until today for their proper management with the appropriate infrastructure.
It is emphasized that the implementation of the new measures concerning the implementation of the separate collection of municipal, the transfer and the system "Pay as I throw" in all local authorities, based on what was decided during the debate in the parliamentary Committee on the Environment, will enter into force six months from the date of entry into force of the local action plans, that is, on 1/7/2024.
It is noted that according to the relevant provision of the regulations, the local administration authorities may prepare and put into force the local action plan on any day until 31/12/2023. This was achieved during the discussion in the Committee, where the representatives of the Union of Cyprus Municipalities and the Union of Communities of Cyprus underlined the need for financial support for the local administration authorities and especially for the mountainous and remote areas of the Republic, in order to achieve the implementation of the additional obligations they will have to shoulder for the implementation of the provisions of the regulations in question. In addition, they expressed their opposition to the provision of the proposed regulations that sets the deadline for the preparation of local action plans for the prevention of the creation and management of municipal waste at 31 December 2022, due to the short time remaining to fulfil this obligation, and recommended to the committee that this deadline be extended until 31 December 2023.
The proposed arrangements are considered necessary as they constitute an ex ante conditionality for the disbursement of funds from the European Structural and Investment Funds (ESIF) and for the funding programmes related to waste management. These are actions whose co-financing exceeds €75 million.
Specifically, the program for the techno-economic support of local authorities for the creation of a system of separate collection of solid municipal waste and the implementation of the program "Pay as I throw" is co-financed by the Structural Funds with a budget of €25 million. The solid municipal waste reduction program for coastal hotel and related tourism infrastructure in Limassol and Paphos is funded with €7 million. For the mountainous areas of Cyprus, a programme for the prevention, separate collection and recovery of municipal waste is funded with the amount of €1.5 million. Through the Structural Funds, the program of improvements in existing and development of new infrastructure for the treatment of organic and / or recyclable waste is funded, a project with a budget of €15 million. With the support of the Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF), projects of €14.3 million will be co-financed. They concern the installation of 50 autonomous mechanical composters in remote and semi-remote areas amounting to €7 million, the creation of two reuse and repair centres and a network of stores amounting to €4 million. and the program for the installation of 50 green pavilions in remote and semi-remote areas amounting to €3.3 million. Furthermore, the LIFE project finances projects amounting to €15 million.
It is emphasized that the Commission has set the fulfilment of the conditionality for the disbursement of funds related to waste management, as a condition for the approval of the cohesion policy program "Foundations for changing Prosperity for Equal Development (THALEIA) 2021-2027" with a budget of €1.8 billion. Among other things, the regulations provide for the local authorities to draw up a six-year local action plan for the prevention of the formation and management of municipal waste.
INTERVENTION
Mindset doesn't change easily
The implementation of the Pay As Long As I Throw system with a prepaid bag takes a long time to implement. It is a system that, on the one hand, will be fairer for households and businesses to pay less and, on the other, it wins over the environment once the waste that ends up in the management units is reduced, while the recycling and reuse of materials increases. Especially for households it is a pity that they cannot reduce the cost at least for the garbage they produce, at a time when they have increased costs in all the rest. Today's decision (if taken) of the Plenary Session of the Parliament, which essentially gives an extension to the implementation, does not find us in agreement.
