For a long time, landfill was the easiest way for Czech companies and municipalities to get rid of waste. Act No. 541/2020 Coll., the Czech Waste Act, makes that route more expensive every year for recoverable waste and closes it in 2030. Anyone who produces such waste faces two changes: rising costs for the rest of this decade, and the need for a different outlet after it.
What the law says
The Waste Act has been in force since 2021 and brings the EU's circular economy rules into Czech law. It uses two tools against landfilling. The first is a statutory fee for every tonne landfilled, which for recoverable waste rises each year.
The second is a ban. From 2030, recyclable and recoverable waste may not be landfilled, including waste whose calorific value exceeds a set limit. Landfills will not disappear, but they will be reserved for waste that cannot be used in any other way.
How the landfill fee rises
The law fixes the fee per tonne of recoverable waste in advance for each year. It is charged on top of the landfill operator's own gate fee. In 2020 the fee stood at CZK 500; the new act has raised it every year since 2021.
| Year | Statutory fee per tonne of recoverable waste |
|---|---|
| 2020 | CZK 500 |
| 2021 | CZK 800 |
| 2022 | CZK 900 |
| 2023 | CZK 1,000 |
| 2024 | CZK 1,250 |
| 2025 | CZK 1,500 |
| 2026 | CZK 1,600 |
| 2027 | CZK 1,700 |
| 2028 | CZK 1,800 |
| 2029 | CZK 1,850 |
| 2030 | landfill ban |
Between 2020 and 2029 the rate more than triples. The same tonnage costs more each year, even if the landfill operator never changes its own price.
What it means for companies and municipalities
Manufacturers, waste collection companies and municipalities should budget for the statutory rate of each coming year, not for today's price. Collection and disposal contracts that run beyond 2030 should also set out what happens to the waste once the ban applies.
The bigger shift comes in 2030. Waste that goes to landfill today will have to be sent for recycling or another form of recovery. Everyone who landfills now will be competing for the same recycling and energy-recovery capacity. Those with their own solution, or with capacity secured by contract, will depend far less on that competition.
The alternatives to landfill
The law does not prescribe any single technology. The right choice depends on the type of waste, how clean it is and how much of it there is. In practice, the routes are combined.
Recycling
Material recycling sits at the top of the waste hierarchy, but it needs clean, sorted, single-material streams. Less than a third of plastic waste in Europe is recycled today, mostly by mechanical means.
Energy recovery
Waste-to-energy plants burn waste to produce electricity and heat. The material itself is lost, leaving ash, slag and flue-gas cleaning residues, and the plant charges for taking the waste in.
Pyrolysis
Pyrolysis breaks down plastics, tyres and other materials with heat in the absence of oxygen, typically at 400–600 °C. The products are oil, gas and carbon, which can be sold or put to use. Unlike mechanical recycling, it copes with mixed and contaminated streams. We explain how pyrolysis works and how it differs from incineration in a separate article.
Why preparation should start now
The year 2030 may seem a long way off, but a new waste treatment facility is not built overnight. A project goes through analysis, a feasibility study, permitting, construction and start-up. Permitting is usually the longest stage, and how long it takes depends mainly on the site. Our article on permits for a pyrolysis plant covers what is involved.
The first step is not an investment but a clear picture: what waste you produce and in what volumes, what its disposal costs today, and how that figure will change with each year's rate. Only then can you judge whether your own technology makes sense or another solution fits better.
Having your own plant does not have to mean committing your own capital either. Under our pay-per-tonne model, we finance, build and operate the plant, and you pay for the volume processed.
See how much oil, gas and carbon your waste contains, and what its disposal costs you now, in our yield calculator.