A new act on maintaining the cleanliness and order in communes of 1 July, 2011, will become effective in Poland on 1 January, 2012. The act will come fully into force on 1 July, 2013. According to this act regulations, commune self-governments take over the obligations of the property owners concerning waste management, moreover, they become responsible for construction and maintenance of the infrastructure supporting recycling and waste disposal processes. The self-governments were granted a 1.5 year transition period to implement the act regulations.The introduced changes are an adjustment of Polish regulation to the Euro-pean law. Only in Poland and Hungary local self-governments have not yet been responsible for management of waste generated in their areas.The article presents an analysis of the basic changes introduced by the act to the Polish system of municipal waste management. Presented are also the estimates of the mass of wastes collected on the territory of Poland with particular regard to the Małopolskie voivodeship. Calculations and forecasts were made on the basis of information collected by the Main Statistical Office (GUS) and commune offices, where systems similar to the one introduced by the act have been operating for several years. The act assumes that all ...
