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Former Prime Minister Algirdas Butkevičius, who raised such an initiative, proposed exempting owners of unused goods from the fee.
According to the politician who introduced the amendment to the Waste Management Law, this is especially relevant in the regions.
“In districts, especially in rural areas and smaller towns, there are dead people whose houses or apartments remain empty. No one buys them. And in cities such apartments are available. And someone has to pay a fee for garbage collection all the months, ”explained the MP to BNS.
Critics say such a provision could lead to abuse, and there are several reservations to current regulation.
According to Simon Gentville, a liberal who works on the Environment Committee, municipalities can still exempt residents from the variable part of the waste management fee, leaving only a fixed part.
“The municipalities have an order: they look at the electricity and water meters, if they are not used, they are exempt from part of the waste tax,” S. Bntvilas told BNS.
Agnė Kazlauskienė, Advisor to the Association of Municipalities on Environmental and Energy Affairs, states that each municipality, taking into account its specific characteristics, approves the procedures to apply exemptions and toll exemptions.
According to her, A. Butkevičius’s proposal does not comply with the principles of the current toll because it consists of two parts: a variable, the size of which is determined by the amount of garbage, and a constant, which is necessary to maintain the collection infrastructure of waste.
“It is the case that the smaller the municipality, the more expensive it is to handle municipal waste, therefore, that permanent part is larger,” explained A. Kazlauskienė.
According to her, in different municipalities, the fixed participation is now between 20 and 90 percent. all tolls, but most municipalities have almost equal fixed and variable rates.
Vilnius city deputy mayor Valdas Benkunskas says there are no complaints in the capital that owners of empty real estate should pay a garbage tax. According to him, even a person who goes on vacation for a month can apply and would be exempt from a portion of the waste management fee, but the savings would be small.
“It just came to our attention then. It would only be difficult to execute a deed request,” explained the deputy mayor.
According to the procedure applied in Vilnius, it is possible to request an exemption only for the variable part, which is 40%. all charges, and the fixed part must be paid by the person.
“We need to maintain the entire system: drivers must be paid for garbage collection, waste sorting has to work,” said Vl; Benkunsk
According to data from the municipal company Vilnius Waste Administrator, in 2018 669 applications were received from residents for a partial exemption from the garbage tax, in 2019 – 1,558 applications, and during the first five months of this year, almost 1,000 people applied for it. . persons.
According to A. Kazlauskienė, the possibility of not paying the garbage fee will be abused, and the losses incurred by the system should be covered by other residents.
“I spoke to the municipality of Molėtai, it is a small tourist complex, with a small population, but the people were quarantined en masse during the quarantine. The amount of waste doubled in three months. But everyone says they do not generate garbage. Most of the farms are owned by people who live in the city where they don’t live permanently. They dumped waste into general-purpose containers and cemeteries. No one wants to pay for that variable part, “said A. Kazlauskienė.
According to the representative of the Association of Municipalities, even when paying the fixed part, there is a problem that there are not enough funds to dispose of the collected waste.
R. Butkevičius agrees that if the owners of unused real estate no longer pay the full waste fee, its increase is possible for other waste holders. However, the MP says this can be avoided by increasing the efficiency of municipal waste management companies.
It also points out that, given the real population that uses waste management services, these infrastructure and service capacities would be developed according to a real rather than theoretical need.
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