Waste discharge fees might rise significantly

In two years we will probably pay twice as much for waste discharge. People in Vienna already pay four times as much for waste discharge as in Hungary. This dramatic increase is caused by the financial demands of the construction and maintenance of the technological requirements of the EU as well as amortization. According to Mr László Szilágyi, director of the Hungarian Waste Prevention Alliance (HuMuSz), after the introduction of the new standards the service sector of waste management will probably be transformed, small providers will disappear and the market will be more concentrated. He also added that the most favourable solution for the population would be a differentiated tariff model in which the fee would depend on the amount of waste produced.

Obviously the amount of communal waste produced is not constant throughout the year. There are seasonal changes: in the time of public holidays, and mostly around Christmas a significant increase can be observed. According to Mr Szilágyi, the change in consumer habits plays a significant role in this increase since we are using more and more packaging materials. The appearance of big shopping centres has transformed consumer needs as well, people do their shopping less frequently and in higher and higher quantities. Therefore the demand for meat packaged in foil and preserved food has risen, so has the demand for durable packaging materials. This phenomenon is even more intensified by the fact that the supply of the more than 50 shopping centres in and around Budapest consists mostly of conserved and packaged products - said Mr. László Perneczky, employee of HuMuSz.

In a big city half of the waste is composed of packaging materials, shopping bags, paper boxes and material used for the packaging of liquids. Moreover, this rise is not even at its peak yet. According to conservative estimates the waste produced in Budapest amounts to one million tonnes which is huge compared to the national total of 4.5-5 million tonnes.

Waste management fees vary from municipality to municipality: the annual fee per person varies between 3-4 thousand to 20 thousand HUF. This is influenced to a great extent by the geographical location of the local landfill site, the standard level of the applied technology and amortization as well. In general, the closer the standard of the landfill site stands to the EU requirements the more its maintenance will cost - added Mr. Szilágyi.

Unfortunately we cannot give an estimate on the rate of increase of the fees since besides the introduction of the modern technology the tariffs depend also on the increase of fuel prices and the costs of guarding the closed sites - informed Ms. Zsófia Horti, spokesperson of the Budapest Public Place Maintenance Plc. (FKF).  In Budapest 17 to 18 cubic meters of waste is transported daily, amounting to an annual six million cubic meters. The budget for this year is 23.4 billion HUF including the construction of selective waste collection islands, the annual clearance and the execution of different public cleanliness tasks. Unfortunately it is not possible to keep pace with the waste transport demand resulting from the consumption of the population, therefore further expensive developments are required -said Ms. Horti.

Translation: Tünde NAGY-KOVÁCS
Proof-reading:  Bev Lovatt