Prague City Hall will raise the price of municipal waste collection by 30 percent. On Thursday, representatives of the capital approved an amendment to the decree setting the cost of the service.

The city is expected to raise 220 million crowns extra per year, which is to significantly reduce the amount of money it has to pay for the waste collection and disposal system.

Another part of the change is the introduction of a biowaste collection service, whose price will be halved compared to the present. The opposition rejected the price increase. Nowadays, households in the metropolis pay monthly for the collection of ordinary waste from 86 Kč to 5737 Kč, depending on the frequency and size of the container.

Deputy Mayor of Prague, Petr Hlubuček (STAN) stated that the price for collecting has not changed since 2005 when the decree came into force. The city’s costs for the collection of municipal waste is over 977 million crowns a year; the rest is from the budget subsidy. After the increase, which will bring about 220 million crowns to the city budget, the financial participation of the city should decrease from last year 26 percent to three percent.

In an amendment to the decree, the representatives also approved the introduction of a bio-waste collection. It is possible to order it from PSAS. PSAS offers the service from 1346 Kč per year when transporting a 120-litre container once every 14 days or 8611 Kč when collecting a container of 240 litres twice a week. After taking over the service by the city, prices will be halved.

However, biowaste containers will still not be mandatory and will only be provided by the city to households that request them. These days, around 13,000 homes pay for a biowaste container in the metropolis.

Opposition ODS and ANO criticized the price increase on Thursday. The chairwoman of the Civic Democrat Party, Alexandra Udženija, said that an increase of 30 per cent would mean a significant encroachment on household budgets and that the city should not continue to increase housing costs. Patrik Nacher, the head of ANO, pointed out that the city has already allowed the districts to increase property tax, many of which have taken advantage of it.

Waste fees are paid according to the size and number of containers and the frequency of exports. According to Prague 10 spokesperson, Jan Hamrnik, it is not possible to say a specific amount for apartment buildings, because it depends, among other things, on the number of tenants in the house. It ranges from 600 to 960 Kč per person and per year.

Last year, people in the city produced 321,183 tons of waste; a year earlier, it was 304,325 tons.

The sorted waste was 56,949 tons last year. Paper is the most sorted. Other waste ends up in the collection yards, which are located in Prague 20. Waste collection for about two-thirds of the city is carried out based on a contract with the Prague City Hall, and the rest is provided by AVE CZ entrepreneur Daniel Křetínský and its subcontractors.