Liquid waste management in municipalities – time for reporting!

Under the new provisions of the Law on Maintaining Cleanliness and Order, a new reporting obligation has been imposed on municipalities regarding liquid waste management. The first report on liquid waste management in 2023 must be submitted no later than April 30, 2024. to the appropriate Provincial Inspectorate for Environmental Protection and to the Regional Water Management Board of the Polish Waterways. It is worth mentioning that if the mayor of a municipality does not carry out controls in this regard, the municipality can be fined from 10 to 50 thousand dollars. PLN.

Report on liquid waste management

According to the provisions of the Law on Maintaining Cleanliness and Order in Municipalities, the mayor of a municipality, mayor or city president has been obliged to submit annual reports to the provincial environmental protection inspector and the director of the regional water management board of the State Water Management Company Wody Polskie. Among other things, the document is to include information on:

1. The number of non-drainage tanks and domestic wastewater treatment plants in the municipality;
2. the number of property owners from whom liquid waste has been collected and the number of people registered at the address of the property where the given no-tank or the given domestic sewage treatment plant is located;
3. The number of liquid waste disposal contracts entered into during the reporting period, as well as before the reporting period, if they include activities carried out during the reporting period;
4. the number of no-outflow tanks or domestic wastewater treatment plants, the emptying of which has been organized by the municipality;
5. Frequency of emptying of the no-tank or settling tank at the domestic wastewater treatment plant;
6. The amount of liquid waste collected from the municipality’s area, broken down into domestic and industrial liquid waste;
7. the amount of water withdrawn by users not connected to the sewerage system; the number of document inspections carried out and the results of these inspections.
8. of the transfer stations to which the liquid waste collected from the municipality was transferred (in the form of a list of these stations);
9. The number of inspections carried out on the documents referred to in Art. 6 paragraph. 5a, and the results of these inspections.

Liquid waste management – obligations of owners of properties not connected to a sewage system

Property owners who dispose of liquid waste from their property, in accordance with the provisions of the Law on Maintaining Cleanliness and Order in Municipalities, are required to:

1. possession of documents in the form of:
2. a contract concluded with an entrepreneur who has a valid permit to conduct the business of emptying out the out-of-bottom tanks or settling tanks in domestic sewage treatment plants and transporting liquid waste;
3. Evidence of payment of fees for the aforementioned services.
4. Disposal of liquid waste:
5. not less often than once a quarter – in the case of collection of sewage in non-drainage tanks;
6. at least once every 2 years – in the case of collection of sewage in settling tanks of domestic sewage treatment plants.

According to the aforementioned regulations, the mayor should conduct an inspection in the above-described scope at least once every two years, in accordance with a plan that includes at least a list of entities to be inspected during a certain period.

The amendment to the Law on Maintaining Cleanliness and Order in Municipalities also introduced a specific provision on how inspections should be carried out. According to it, the inspector is authorized, among other things, to demand written or oral information and to summon and question persons to the extent necessary to establish the facts, and to demand production of documents and access to any data relevant to the scope of the inspection. A protocol is drawn up from the inspection activities, one copy of which should be delivered to the relevant individual or the head of the entity.

We wrote about the regulation detailing the requirements for an entrepreneur applying for a permit for emptying out the septic tanks or settling tanks in the installation of domestic sewage treatment plants and transporting liquid waste in a previous article in Water Matters: An update on septic tank and sludge disposal regulations pending.

How should the report be submitted?

In order to make it easier for obligated entities to fulfill their statutory obligation and submit the required data, the State Water Company Wody Polskie, in cooperation with the Chief Inspectorate of Environmental Protection, has developed a reporting questionnaire template in MS EXCEL spreadsheet.

The completed and signed reporting questionnaire, bearing a qualified electronic signature or a trusted signature of an authorized person, should be sent to the locally competent Provincial Environmental Inspectorate via the ePUAP electronic sub-box. Detailed information on how to fill out the liquid waste management reporting form and its template can be found on the website of the State Water Company.