The Green Action NGO on Tuesday welcomed the decision by Zagreb City authorities regarding waste collection, saying this was a big step in the right direction enabling fairer bills, more recycling, and less waste delivered to the city's Jakusevac landfill.

“Finally, fairer bills and a better waste collection service in Zagreb,” the environmental protection NGO, which was once led by the incumbent Mayor Tomislav Tomasevic, said in a press release.

The proposed decision brings a new model of waste collection under which bins will have locks so they cannot be accessed by third persons.

“We consider this to be a good move which we have advocated for years because better supervision will enable fairer waste separation so the percentage of recycling will be greater. This has been proved successful in many cities across the EU such as Ljubljana, which has been dubbed the European capital of cleanliness,” the NGO said.

As far as billing is concerned, the proposal introduces partial payment based on the quantity of waste and the more citizens separate waste the lower their bills will be.

That is certainly a much fairer way to charge for waste collection than the current system of charging per square metre and the number of household members.

One of the challenges of the proposed model is supervising the use of official bin bags and identifying and penalising irresponsible citizens.

“That will require stepping up municipal inspections and introducing additional reward models…We also expect our proposal for bags for mixed waste to be replaced with appropriate smaller containers and waste meters, to be adopted soon,” the NGO said.