Your everyday, mixed communal waste you take to the common waste bins for your apartment building or your own dedicated waste bin(s) for those living in a house. Garbage collect or trucks come regularly (most commonly once a week) to collect the trash and empty your bins.

Payment for the communal waste is stipulated in your lease contract.

Apart from your mixed household waste, called communal waste, you have an option to sort your waste. There are four main categories of the waste for sorting: plastic, paper, glass and beverage cartons.

 

How does it actually work?

There are four basic types of coloured containers where you can bring your sorted waste. It is NOT collected at your door step and it is NOT compulsory to sort your waste. There is NOT an imposed fee for collecting the sorted waste as it is covered by the local municipality. Nowdays, it is considered good manners to sort your household waste in the Czech republic and Czechs are quite successful in it.

72% of Czechs actively sort their waste with 10% growth in the last 10 years. The coloured recycling bins are on average 99 m far from every household and approx. 75% of the total packaging production is recycled per year. That brings the Czech republic to one of the top countries in waste sorting.

 

GREEN and WHITE containers for GLASS

Glass is collected in the container that is painted in green or in white colour. In case both these containers are available, the used glass should be sorted also according to its colour – coloured glass shall come in the green container (bottles used for wine, beer and other alcoholic beverages, soft beverages as well as smashed glass panes of doors or windows).

Colourless glass is to be put in the white one (wasted container glass-bottles and jars, used packaging for ketchups, jams etc., and broken beverage glass).

The sorted glass need not be shattered as it will be subject to additional sorting and processing.

YELLOW containers for PLASTIC

In an average Czech rubbish bin plastic waste takes the largest space among all waste types. That is why the sorting of plastic waste is very important as well as the reduction of their volume, typically by crushing plastic bottles by foot or by pressing them by an appropriate method before disposal.

What belongs here: Plastic foils, bags, collapsed PET bottles, packages of washing, cleaning and cosmetic agents, cups used for packing yoghurts and other dairy products, packing foils of consumer goods, packages of CD discs and other plastic products.

 

BLUE containers for PAPER

It is just paper that forms the largest part, by weight, of all waste types produced by Czech households, which can be sorted. The blue container thus represents the easiest way, how paper waste can be disposed of properly.

The blue collecting container is the right place, where newspapers, magazines, copybooks, paper boxes and other packages, any cardboard items and even books (w/o bindings) can be chucked. Envelopes with transparent foil windows and scrap chancery paper including staples and paper clips may go there, too. Processing firms will be able to handle them. However, blister liners, if used, should be removed from envelopes before disposal.

Complete books should not be put in blue containers – their bindings have to be removed first. If a larger number of books are to be disposed of, they should be better delivered to a collection (drop-off) centre. Scrap paper that cannot be recycled, such as carbon paper, greasy or otherwise soiled paper should not be collected in the container. Warning! Used disposable napkins really do not belong in the container for paper, but in the rubbish bin!

BEVERAGE CARTONS

Known as milk or wine boxes should be thrown in containers that may get various shapes and colours, but bear an orange label in any case, or in orange bags. It will depend on the carton collection system employed by the municipality of concern. Beverage cartons bear the following marks/symbols:

In case you find a container identifiable to its orange label, you should be sure it is designed for collecting wasted beverage cartons used for juices, wine, milk and dairy products, which should be collapsed (by foot) before being thrown in the container.

In case you find the coloured containers very full, just leave your bags next to the container, they will be removed by the collecting company.

Recently the city of Prague introduced underground containers.

Their capacity is three times bigger,

 

Here are some hints and advices on how to sort your waste and many other information:

www.jaktridit.cz

Start looking around your neighborhood to map the coloured containers in your vicinity and in case you have any questions or requirements, please contact the CheckPoint Relocations.