Even after Latvia’s adoption of a packaging deposit system earlier this year Getliņi landfill has yet to experience any changes to the waste processed there, said Getliņi Eko board chairman Imants Stirāns in an interview.
«We haven’t experienced any changes so far. We would like to have some changes, because the level of glass mixed in with biological waste is very high, and this creates serious problems,» said Stirāns.
On top of that he does not expect changes to come soon.
Stirāns did add that the general structure of waste has changed in recent years, especially after waste sorting became more popular among residents.
«With waste it’s simple – it is affected by the economic situation. Latvia’s economy declined 30% during the crisis of 2008, and the volume of unsorted waste had declined 30% that year. Now the situation is slightly different – there aren’t more people, and the Covid-19 pandemic has had an effect on the volume of waste in recent years. The worse off we are, the less waste there is. The quality of life does not go up. It remains stable, and so the volume of freight does not increase,» said Stirāns.
Getliņi Eko manager said collection of sorted waste helps reduce the total volume of waste.
«Operators are working on collecting sorted waste. This system works well. Biological waste is the only problematic sector, because related legislation isn’t organised here. We need a fundamental change of approach and a full restructuring of costs.»
«Collecting, transporting and processing biological waste is more expensive than unsorted waste. People have no stimulus that would motivate them to sort biological waste.»
«People are punished in a way – because the more we sort biological waste, the more we have to pay. If we want to introduce a stimulus here, we need to artificially reduce the price of biological waste collection and increase the price for collection of unsorted waste,» Stirāns suggested.
Additionally, he said the pandemic has not affected the volume of waste. The only notable change is that the number of face masks thrown away in the trash has increased somewhat. «There were no masks in waste before the pandemic. But I wouldn’t say the ration between biological waste, packaging and inert waste has changed. Most categories are stable,» admits Stirāns.