Councillors adopted a resolution concerning the adoption of a statement by the Bolesławiec City Council on suspending work on resolutions concerning waste management in the municipality:

Local legislation in a democratic state governed by the rule of law and implementing the principles of social justice cannot be enacted amid legal uncertainty. The Bolesławiec City Council was preparing to adopt resolutions organizing waste management in December 2012. In the absence of a response from the Constitutional Tribunal to the application submitted by the Inowrocław City Council and supported by our Council, and in view of the resolution of the Senate of the Republic of Poland of 12 December 2012 concerning the submission to the Sejm of a bill amending the Act on Maintaining Cleanliness and Order in Municipalities and Certain Other Acts, the Bolesławiec City Council declares that it is suspending work on these resolutions until final legal regulations are established in the following areas:

  1. Existing municipal installations involved in processing municipal waste should be able to operate within the adopted system by decision of the municipal authorities.
  2. Municipal legal entities—wholly municipal companies and budgetary establishments—should receive orders for waste-management services directly from municipalities, without a tender (under European Union law).
  3. The boundaries of waste-management areas, a task of the voivodeship self-government, should be corrected so that municipalities can choose the nearest installation. This will lower waste-collection prices as early as January 2013.
  4. Alternatively, the application of regional boundaries should be suspended until there are enough RIPOKs to ensure fair competition in a given region. Until more RIPOKs are established, the operation of a single RIPOK in a region creates the risk of a monopoly, for which the residents of the municipalities will have to pay.
  5. The deadline for municipalities to adopt resolutions pursuant to Article 6k(1), Article 6l, Article 6n(1) and Article 6r(3) of the Act on Maintaining Cleanliness and Order in Municipalities should be postponed by at least two months.

The justification for the resolution states that the Bolesławiec City Council had been preparing for many months to organize waste management in accordance with the amended Act on Maintaining Cleanliness and Order in Municipalities. Since the beginning of the 1990s, the city had been building technical infrastructure (the Municipal Waste Neutralization Plant) and organizational infrastructure (establishing a municipal company dealing with waste management—MZGK Sp. z o.o. in Bolesławiec), implementing environmental education (the Municipal Centre for Environmental Education) and selective waste collection. We have no right to damage this well-developed system. Therefore, on 31 October 2012, the Bolesławiec City Council adopted Resolution No. XXIX/217/2012 expressing support for the resolution of the Inowrocław City Council concerning the submission to the Constitutional Tribunal of an application to determine that the provisions of the Act on Maintaining Cleanliness and Order in Municipalities are incompatible with the Constitution of the Republic of Poland. The reality shaped by successive amendments to amendments of legal provisions has undermined the foundations of rational local legislation. Faced with legal uncertainty, we feel compelled to suspend further work on the draft resolutions submitted by the Mayor of Bolesławiec concerning:

  1. the regulations for maintaining cleanliness and order within the city of Bolesławiec;
  2. the choice of method for determining the fee for municipal waste management, the amount of that fee and the fee rate for containers within the city of Bolesławiec;
  3. determining the deadline, frequency and procedure for paying the municipal waste-management fee submitted by the property owner;
  4. determining the template of the declaration on the amount of municipal waste-management fees submitted by the property owner;
  5. the detailed manner and scope of providing services for collecting municipal waste from property owners and managing that waste in return for the municipal waste-management fee paid by the property owner;
  6. the collection of municipal waste from property owners whose properties are not inhabited but where municipal waste is generated;
  7. the requirements to be met by an entrepreneur applying for a permit to conduct activities involving the emptying of septic tanks and transporting liquid waste.

We will resume work as soon as stable legal foundations are provided for adopting final regulations which, once communicated to our residents, will not be subject to change immediately after entering into force.

View photo 1 from the gallery View photo 2 from the gallery View photo 3 from the gallery

(information: Bolesławiec City Hall/ii)