Prague will start a trial collection of kitchen scraps in several parts of the city

The capital city of Prague and its owned company Prague Services (PSAS) will soon start testing how the collection of kitchen scraps from special bins works in eight smaller city districts on the eastern edge of the metropolis. The project was approved by city councilors this week and is expected to last a year and a half. In the future, the management of the municipality wants to introduce collection throughout the city. The testing will take place in Běchovice, Dolní Počernice, Dubča, Kolodějy, Kolovraty, Královice, Nedvězí and Újezd ​​nad Lesy, which together have about 26,000 inhabitants.

“The expected price is around two million crowns and the pilot project will last about one and a half years. We will then use the obtained data as a basis for the introduction of a Prague-wide collection of gastro-waste,” said Deputy Mayor of Prague Jana Komrsková (Piráti). “It will work in family buildings with some kind of shared bin,” she added.

According to the approved document, residents will throw kitchen waste of plant and animal origin as well as expired food in the original packaging into the new containers.

“All waste would be placed in containers in any type of bag. This will prevent excessive contamination of the container, the creation of odors and will ensure user comfort,” the document states. Trash collection will be once a week, twice a week in the summer.

Prague does not yet have its own biogas station capable of processing animal waste. It plans to adapt the station in Chrást near Poříčany in Nymburk, which the municipality bought last summer for 159.2 million crowns. Until then, according to Komrsková, the waste will go elsewhere.

“We will tie it to other bioply stations, for example Mladá Boleslav, where it recently opened and where PSAS has a contract,” she said.

According to her, the negotiations with the city districts were quite long. “There are various negative connotations on the part of citizens, but I believe that even with some campaign that was going on, it was perhaps managed to be removed, but every news brings with it certain concerns. I believe they will be refuted,” she concluded.