Poland's Environment, recycling

Yes, but not really wash, more rinse. So there's no tomato sauce left in the pot ;)

I'm happy about this new segregation policy. I was kinda 'shocked' first, when I found out everything was going in the same trash, altogother, plastic, glass, anything.

just the one bin here.... for the usual mixed rubbish.

Doesn't bother me in the slightest about having to segregate rubbish, the only problem is that I haven't bought separate bins yet...

Well, the instructions on leaflets mention washing, not rinsing. :):):):)


24gliwice.pl/wiadomosci/?p=51493

They also request/advise to wash/rinse plastic pots like youghurt etc. Crazy?

This is not about going 'green' , it is about profit. Companies which collect garbage which has been previously separated can reduce their treatment costs and thus increase their profit using the average citizen work for that. Then those companies charge the municipality which charges their citizens for collecting the garbage.

The biggest garbage collector in Poland is the German company REMONDIS, which is widely known for paying very low wages (in Poland as well as in Germany) and having a slave policy towards their employees (for instance, by not paying extra worked hours) and much more.

Summarizing, you guys benefit the Germans by segregating the garbage, which make profit by treating your waste, separate it, and resell some materials gotten out of it

The new garbage collection disposition is just that... garbage. And many places are not even ready to have this implemented yet, but they will start charging the higher fees. Someone is getting paid.

of course. As I mentioned before, this is not about going green, this is about charging more to the average citizen. The German company REMONDIS will benefit from that

The biggest problem - look at the garbage containers in Poland. You can see through all garbage. And they are usually located in the central locations of town/villages. Looks ugly. But someone is saving money by making containers from wire instead of from full-cover plastic.

Pawian, jesteś gliwiczaninem? ;D


Yes, this does sound crazy tho...

Then some people from Poland should start a waste treatment plant, recover some of the waste so it can be recycled and kick out the germans from doing that.

Yes, they even wrote an article about the situation in Wrocław.


tvn24.pl/smieciowa-rewolucja-sobie-a-wroclaw-sobie,336479,s.html
But don`t worry - that is just a transition period, say local authorities. Nothing is easy in the beginning. Old bins had to remain until the end of June due to previous contracts. New bins will arrive within a month.

who cares if companies are making money from it. Poland is full of garbage and it needs to be cleaned up, unfortunately no Polish company is willing to take the lead on this so a foreign company comes in and does the job. big deal. Perhaps those anti Remondis would like to start their own garbage collection company? No, then shut it.

rinsing the crap off the recyclables is no biggie. seriously? How lazy can you be?

Personally, I think garbage collection should be organized by the municipality (gmina) and included in property taxes. Like in Canada. My city in Canada is one of the greenest. There is a blue box for plastics and metals, and a green box for compost and black for paper products.

Showing respect for the country you live in shouldn't be a big deal.

I, for one, am tired of seeing garbage lining the streets and in the forest close to my house. It is disgusting.

In the UK, we've had separate bins in many areas for many years. The other types of bins where recyclables are put together are called "co-mingled" waste bins.

There were various news reports in the UK about co-mingled waste not being properly recycled, a lot of it sent to landfill or to countries abroad where it ends up in a huge pile of waste that locals scavenged from, risking toxicity etc for them. In the UK, some carefully recycled waste ends up in a landfill or dump anyway...

As for consumers wasting water washing recyclables, I couldn't agree more.

See
dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2304773/The-great-recycling-trick-How-carefully-sorted-waste-dumped-abroad.html
letsrecycle.com/news/latest-news/paper/paper-recyclers-condemn-trafficking-in-co-mingled-waste
guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/feb/26/recycling-waste-environment

I know in Canada that the reason you need to rinse the containers first is that if they are not rinsed and left to go mouldy they could pose problems for those who work their, namely with mould spores in the air.

When i started living here i was happy that there were garbage containers for plastic, glass and cans.
The one for glass was made out of fibre glass and the ones for plastic and cans were made out of wire.
It didn't take long before all the other containers were removed by the municipality, citing that the transportation costs were
higher than what they got for recycling, so it was back to land filling again.
Most of the changes that are forced by EU regulations are far beyond the realities of everyday life here in Poland.
In the end the government is forced to punish people, who are struggling on meagre wages, by increasing the taxes.
Very sad story. In a way i feel like change in this country, which is meant to close the gap between poor EU countries and rich EU countries,

is coming faster than what ordinary people can manage.

well then Poland should stop taking EU money and stand on its own.

Recycling is something that can be done by everybody no matter what their income is. Any excuses are bullshiit.

One of my biggest pet hates about Poland is the garbage everywhere and signs (reklama) everywhere. It makes Warsaw ugly, and it is not. Clean up the flipping garbage and take down the signs. That is it.

We segregate our trash in Canada. Have been doing so for as long as i can remember.

and it is no big deal, right? there is no hassle, right?

In US this is common in many cities. It's a real pain but you get used to it. Where I live, the cities like to have recycling . So, glass items have to be washed and kept in a separate bin. Cardboard, paper, metals are mixed in another bin. In this bin you can put some food containers like yogurt and food cans but you have to wash them first. The idea is they have to be clean for recycling. There's also a separate bin for yard debris like grass cuttings, tree branches, leaves, etc. Then you also have your regular garbage bin for all the rest. Also, you can't just throw away electronics in the garbage anymore - have to take computer monitors, computers, old tv and such things to special places to recycle. The worst part is the space you need for all the different bins until trash/recycling day.

To certain extent, you are right.


I didn`t know that.

But wait a little, soon competition will make prices drop.


Not for ever. :):):)

It takes a bit longer in Poland, my estimate is that the mentality is about 15 years behind.

Personally, I see nothing wrong with making money off of garbage..... I remember having a conversation with an American who despised the whole "eko business" but yet had no problem with companies making money while creating garbage.

Very soon, a clever Pole will get the fact that there is a crap load of money to be made off of recycling

Rinsing the beer bottles before putting it in the recycling bin?
That's just not happening in my neighborhood.
Hopefully, the couple thousand degree heat used in processing cleans it all up.

You mean this?

I have never seen them in Krakow. They can`t be so popular in Poland, then. :):)

We have plastic ones: poland plastic


No, I don`t live in Gliwice but my parents made me there. :):):)

My dad:


Sooner or later, come on.

so you would rather look at garbage thrown on the sides of roads, in the parks and forests and generally everywhere??

Yes, it is free market!


It is not the matter of laziness. Wasting water to clean crap is not too environmentally friendly.




These are the rules from 01.07.2013

Previously, each household or business was expected to sign a contract with a waste disposal company (in apartment blocks an administrator did so), but problems emerged with rubbish being dumped illegally, either in neighbours' bins or in the wild, detrimentally to the environment. The new system sees each household obliged to pay a monthly tax, calculated according to the number of residents, the size of the property and water usage. Meanwhile, local municipalities themselves will be responsible for waste collection, disposal and recycling.

According to Eurostat, the official statistics office of the EU, some 60 kg of 315 kg waste produced by the average Pole in 2011 ended up as unprocessed litter (the EU average was 503 kg per person, from which 17 kg ended up as litter. As regards actual treated rubbish, in Poland, 71 percent ended up in landfills, while 28 percent was recycled or composted, and 1 percent burnt. Meanwhile, the EU average was estimated at 37 percent in landfills, 38 percent recycled or composted and 23 percent burnt.

the new law actually excludes any competition once the deal between municipality (gmina) and the trash collector is signed, we already had Remondis and they were always late with collecting trash, now we are again married with Remondis because gmina made the deal with them and we will have to pay through our noses for the sorted trash (13 PLN per person per month - which is higher than what we pay for unsorted trash now)

Gumi, welcome back. Yes, I thought the same on seconds thoughts after having written the post but too late to edit it. Thank you for pointing to it.

But, how many cities/towns/counties signed contracts with German company?

Where I am (just outside Poznan) - we've signed a deal with the previous locally owned company. No sign of any Germans, only moustaches. As for the price - 24zl a month for two people is fine by me, especially if it finally puts a stop to the problem of rubbish being dumped by idiotic houseowners who can't afford to pay for rubbish collection.

you don't know the company and neither you know their policies. You are not in a position for saying anything concerning that


yes, I am agree. I am absolutely against seeing garbage on the streets, however, there should be a policy from which everyone is benefited from collecting the garbage, and not that the average citizen pays more to a German company (REMONDIS)which takes the money out of Poland


Let's hope so.

That`s an important intention behind the whole scheme : if everybody has to pay the tax for the rubbish collection, no matter if they produce any thrash, then people won`t dump it in other places.