The working group came to an agreement on the principles of future penalties for waste incineration

Press release: 24.11.2011

The working group concerned with the poor air quality in the Moravian-Silesian Region came to an agreement today in Karviná on the basic principles of legal regulation of imposing penalties sanctions on people who burn waste in their household heating units. The sanctions will apply to people who repeatedly violate the law by burning waste, such as tyres or PET bottles and, through their actions, directly endanger the health and lives of their neighbours, including children.

“We don’t want to promote narking, conflicts between neighbours or green commandos. Consequently, the basic framework of this system is based on the suspicion-control-penalty chain that is set up so that the officials in a municipality with extended competence request control in a particular household only by the local town hall, i.e. people who are well acquainted with the local socio-economic situation, relationships amongst the inhabitants and their mutual neighbourly relationships,” stated Minister Tomáš Chalupa in this connection.

In the future, access to a household should be limited only to access to the source of heat (heating unit) and the fuels used; this control should not serve for other purposes than simply to control the heating unit. “Fines should then be imposed only in cases where the owner of the “controlled” heating unit refuses access to his combustion source and, of course, in cases where the control reveals actual violation of the law, i.e. combustion of waste,” added the Minister.

The working group was concerned with the constitutionality of the principles from the beginning of October of this year and requested assistance from 4 law offices concerned with constitutional law and experts from Charles University headed by top constitutional lawyer Aleš Gerloch. “We are all aware of the fact that the right to inviolability of a dwelling, right to protection of health and right to a favourable environment run in parallel and that one of them has no legal precedence over any other one; they must all coexist in mutual equilibrium and may be limited only if this is necessary for protection of the rights and freedoms of others. The proposed regulation takes into account the protection of rights guaranteed by the Constitution and all the legal experts confirmed its constitutionality,” stated Tomáš Chalupa.

The group agreed that control should be entrusted to an official (i.e. a representative of the municipal or city authority), who will be able to invite a professionally qualified person (trained, amongst other things, by the respective heating unit manufacturer) to participate. If suspicion of violation of the law is confirmed, a sanction will be imposed on the operator of the heating unit. However, within 10 years from the date of effect of the Act, all households should be obliged to operate heating units that comply with emission class 3. Until that time, requested controls of the technical condition and level of the combustion equipment should take place at two-year intervals. The authorised official will be able to request a document on the performance of regular controls of the technical condition.

However, according to Tomáš Chalupa, this is certainly not the final version that will enter the legislative process. “At this point we are, so to speak, trying to separate the grain from the chaff. Only later will we be able to start discussing things at the level of possible coalition support,” pointed out the Minister.

Even according to the existing legislation, the operators of heating units are obliged to follow the combustion instructions of the manufacturer, burn only fuel intended for the particular heating unit, not burn waste and not create a nuisance for the surroundings from smoke and smells. However, it is practically impossible to enforce these legal obligations, because the law does not permit a control carried out directly at the source as is possible for business entities. The municipal authorities and the Ministry of the Environment are thus annually confronted by a number of complaints about violation of obligations by the operators of small combustion sources but cannot provide for an effective solution within the existing legal framework. The greatest inadequacy of the current legislation is that it is impossible to obtain the relevant evidence on violation of the above-described duties. Thus, the municipal authorities can deal only with indirect evidence, which is not sufficient for imposing fines and orders for a remedy.

Michaela Jendeková, tiskové oddělení MŽP