Pay as you throw coming soon

In two years, municipal authorities must implement a “pay as you throw” tax scheme on waste, promoted by the government to meet its EU environmental targets by encouraging more recycling.

MPs on Thursday passed a law obligating municipalities to implement the tax scheme, adopting an EU directive.

According to the regulations, local authorities must prepare an action plan before the end of 2023. They will then be given a six-month grace period to implement their local pay-as-you-throw scheme. All municipalities should activate a tax on waste scheme by 1 July 2024.

The programme has already been introduced in the Nicosia suburb of Aglandjia, where residents can now dispose of their waste only in prepaid bags sold by the local authority.

Disposing of recyclable waste is free, and garbage collection fees have been abolished.

The results of the pilot scheme in Aglandjia showed that households were encouraged to recycle more, while the cost of disposing non-recyclable waste was reduced by 41%.

An Aglandjia household, previously paying EUR 170 in rubbish collection fees, today pays less than EUR 100 with the prepaid bag system.

However, organic waste is still discarded together with the rest of the rubbish since no solutions have been provided for its proper management and no progress has been made for creating the necessary infrastructure.

According to a municipal source, in the two months of implementation of the programme there was a 99.3% participation rate by the residents and a reduction of garbage at the Koshi rubbish tip by 39% (561 tonnes).

“Now, the average Aglandjia resident produces 251 kg of waste per year compared to 570 kg produced annually by the average Cypriot. Recycling also increased by 27%,” the source said.

The introduction of the EU regulations was considered necessary, as they are a prerequisite for the disbursement of money from the European Structural and Investment Funds.

Such schemes are part of a broader road map of environmental actions, which are to draw in more than EUR 75 mln in EU funds.