International Review of Waste Management Policy - Department of ...

Prior to the system’s introduction, each of 29 Councils were paying DM 500,000 for
each Council to prepare invoicing. Following the scheme’s introduction, three people
were responsible for all the invoicing. This saved DM100,000 on invoicing. In total,
the analysis suggests savings which are less than is suggested by the per household
analysis above. The household analysis in Figure 9-11 above is based on one type of
system user only, whereas the cost data in Table 9-4 refers to aggregate figures. The
estimated saving was over €6 per household.
An interesting aspect of the system has been its effect on incineration costs. Those
operating the system make the point that the operators of the incinerator plant clearly
do not want these types of system to be implemented as they reduce the quantity of
waste available for the facility. The incinerator operator is now charging lower rates
for larger quantities. The Schweinfurt waste manager noted that this reflected
completely the opposite philosophy to that which the County wished to follow.
9.11 Evasion and Enforcement
Although illegal dumping of household waste occurs, e.g. in public parking lots or
quiet rural locations, these are rather singular and occasional problems which by no
means hinder the overall effectiveness of the PAYT policy in Germany. It must be
pointed out that citizens according to German law are obliged to dispose of their
waste using the local waste disposal system. Citizens cannot, therefore, refuse to
have waste collected. This is due to the fact that the fees for the public disposal
service have to be paid by the community. This is especially important for Ireland
where there is currently no such obligation for individual households to engage with
collection services.
A principal problem is the contamination of recycling bags or bins of the Duales
System (for separate collection of packaging) by regular household wastes (i.e.
residual waste) especially in urban areas. In this case it is difficult to differentiate
between intentional and unintentional disposal (miss-throw). The costs to deal with
this illegal disposal must be borne by the Duales System and therefore are effectively
funded across all household packaging purchases. Standard practice, however, is
that in case of obvious misuse, the recycling bag/bins will not be emptied.
Nevertheless, the proportion of waste disposed in this way is small and as such it may
be said that the PAYT is not significantly affected by such attempts at evasion.
The issue of contamination has not arisen in the Schweinfurt scheme; biowaste
collections are still above 95% purity and wastage rates from DSD recyclables are no
different from other systems and from the pre-scheme situation. Post implementation
review for the Schweinfurt scheme assessed the following illegitimate disposal routes:
1. Burning of waste by households. Regarding this issue, the County sought
information from chimney sweeps. They do not think is an issue, and there is
evidence to suggest that if burning did occur in gardens, that neighbours would
tend to report such activity.
2. It was suggested that some householders might take their waste to their place of
work. Though they consider this a possibility, they have no evidence to suggest it
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International Review of Waste Policy: Annexes