The European Union aims to establish a "recycling society" where no waste is generated and the existing waste is used as resources. The so-called Waste Directive (Directive 2008/98/EC) is a key piece of legislation to enable transition to a recycling society, which sets out the waste management hierarchy. In line with this framework waste prevention is a top priority, followed by reuse, recycling, and ultimately disposal.
Implementation of the Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) system should facilitate waste reduction and treatment. EPR imposes financial or organisational responsibility on producers for managing the product throughout its life cycle, that is during the period of its use and when it becomes waste. This obligation may include separate collection of waste, its sorting and treatment, waste prevention, and making products more suitable for reuse and recycling.
The Waste Directive (amended by Directive 2018/851 of 30 May 2018) obliged Member States to increase the proportion of waste prepared for reuse and recycled against the total municipal waste. This should be at least 55% by 2025, 60% by 2030 and 65% by 2035. In addition, the EU Member States are obliged to reduce the weight of landfilled waste to 10% by 2035, of which the reduction to 30% should be obtained in 2025-2029 and to 20% in 2030-2034.
Already in 2018, the European Commission warned that the existing waste management policy posed "(...) a risk that Poland would not meet the 2020 target to prepare 50% of municipal waste for reuse/recycling". The European Commission considered that separate collection of waste was not fully effective, there were no economic incentives to encourage households to segregate waste, extended producer responsibility schemes did not function effectively. Besides, the EC had reservations about the waste data quality, which undermined credibility of the high recycling rates reported to Eurostat. The position of the European Commission was confirmed for instance by the NIK audit results in 2023. The audit revealed irregularities in monitoring and management of the waste market which paved the way for the grey market development.
Sluggish legislative process
Public administration bodies not always provided sufficient legal conditions for implementing tasks related to waste prevention and recycling. The Ministry proceeded 12 bills on waste management, and started works to introduce the deposit system. In May 2024, works began on a draft amendment to the Waste Act. By the end of the audit, i.e. until 26 September 2024, the draft was not entered on the list of legislative works of the Council of Ministers.
Works on implementing directives on packaging and related waste into the Polish legal system were delayed as well. The Council of Ministers started to debate on three bills audited by NIK only after 115 days, 204 days and 411 days from the time when they should have been transposed.
In addition, the Ministry suspended works on the transposition of the extended producer responsibility mechanism. As a result, the European Commission launched infringement procedures against Poland in February 2024. The Ministry assured the EC that works on the EPR system would be resumed. However, they were still in the conceptual phase until the end of the NIK audit.
Improper organisation
Most of the audited marshal offices, municipalities and associations of municipalities were properly prepared to perform tasks related to waste prevention and recycling. Nevertheless, some of the auditees found it difficult to identify waste management issues and report relevant data.
In 4 out of 16 municipalities, draft resolutions on regulations for maintaining cleanliness and order in municipalities were developed with delays from 46 to 413 days.
The regulations did not include the possibility of creating repair and reuse points for products or parts of non-waste products. An important factor which impaired rational waste management was the lack of municipal waste treatment installations in municipalities. Municipal waste generated in individual municipalities was transferred to external municipal installations, also outside the province, located even more than 600 km away or outside the country.
Lack of reliable data on waste
A significant problem identified during the audit was the lack of tools to monitor waste prevention measures. The National Waste Management Plan for 2022 assumes that the database on products and packaging and waste management (from Polish: BDO) will be such a tool. From January 2018 to June 2024, nearly PLN 77 million was spent to set up and support the database which – however - does not serve its primary purpose. Insufficient IT resources were the reason for delays in launching subsequent BDO modules. BDO was not a source of reliable data.
Irregularities in separate waste collection
In the audited period, almost half of the audited municipalities and two in three audited associations of municipalities failed to meet required targets for preparation for waste reuse and recycling. According to the data from 14 municipalities, in relation to the weight of municipal waste generated, in 2018 a bit more than 31% of municipal waste was collected separately. The data from 15 audited municipalities show that about 35% of municipal waste was collected separately in 2019. That level went up to about 42-43% in 2020-2022. Only three municipalities reported a regular increase in the share of separate waste collection.
In 7 out of 16 municipalities, irregularities were found concerning methods of separate collection of municipal waste on real properties. Waste, including hazardous waste, was collected in wrong containers. In six municipalities and two associations of municipalities, irregularities were related to the functioning of waste collection points and the waste collection method.
Municipalities did not properly audit entities dealing with municipal waste collection. Two municipalities did not supervise entities collecting and managing municipal waste in terms of the obligation to submit annual reports, and no action was taken to impose fines. In two municipalities the obligation of separate collection of municipal waste by property owners was not properly supervised, either.
Insufficient funding
In 2018-2023, the National Fund for Environmental Protection and Water Management had funds at its disposal to finance waste prevention and recycling from domestic funds, as well as from European funds under the Operational Programme Infrastructure and Environment 2014-2020. The public funds were used to finance projects implemented under three priority programmes. Execution of the payment plan to implement the "Rational waste management" plans and the co-financing under the Operational Programme totalled PLN 930 million, which accounted for 61% of the planned amount. PLN 933 million was disbursed to support projects under the measure "Municipal waste management", which made up 107% of the disbursement plan (PLN 876 million was planned).
Irregularities were found in 14 out of 20 audited contracts for co-financing of waste prevention and recycling under the priority programme "Rational waste management". In case of 11 contracts, annexes were signed after the scheduled project completion dates.
The audited provincial funds for environmental protection and water management paid out the total of PLN 66 million from their own funds only.
In the audited period, proceeds from fees paid by property owners for municipal waste management increased in 2018-2022. In the audited associations of municipalities they totalled PLN 446 million, including PLN 60 million in 2018. The total costs of municipal waste management and collection in 13 municipalities totalled PLN 448 million in that period and were PLN 36 million higher than the proceeds from fees.
Recommendations
To improve effectiveness of tasks related to waste prevention and recycling, NIK has made the following recommendations:
To the Minister of Climate and Environment to:
- ensure full transposition of EPR regulations into the Polish legal system;
- make sure Poland meets its obligation under the EU laws to achieve in 2025 the level of 55% in terms of its preparation for reuse and recycling of all municipal waste;
- introduce functionalities to BDO to enable reliable and effective monitoring of the waste market, including execution of tasks related to waste prevention and recycling;
To municipality heads, mayors, presidents of cities with district rights to:
- ensure compliance with the waste management hierarchy principles by initiating activities in the field of municipal waste prevention;
- ensure verification of municipalities' technical and organisational capabilities to meet the objectives related to preparing waste for reuse and recycling, by carrying out thorough analyses of the condition of municipal waste management in individual municipalities.
