Readiness of Administrative Units for Implementation of European Union Directives Governing Solid Waste Management

On 1st July 2013 new legal regulations governing solid waste management were enforced to allow Poland to fulfil the requirements set out in the European Union Directives. The first considerable changes referred colloquially to as „waste resolution’ were imposed by the legislature under the act on maintenance of cleanliness and order in municipalities that was amended on 1st July 2011 (that was subsequently amended on 28th November 2014). The above mentioned changes were followed by subsequent enforcement of the new act on solid waste on 14th December 2012 (that was subsequently amended on 15th January 2015) as well as the new act on packaging and packaging waste management on 13th June 2013. This paper aims at defining and interpreting similarities and differences in implementation of the European Union Directives in administrative units in Poland, as exemplified by a selection of issues on solid waste management. The Chief Statistical Office reports that in Poland in 2014 there were 2479 municipalities. For the purpose of the author’s research, the research questionnaire was developed by the author, that was subsequently distributed among shortlisted municipalities. The analysis was conducted on the basis of the data obtained due to the return of over 260 questionnaires. The publication includes descriptive statistics inter alia comparison of means, tables of figures, etc. Some of the analyses have been elaborated upon with graphical presentation for data inter alia in the form histograms.