CEO Argo Luude gave the general economic situation as the reason – [Estonia's] inflation is among the fastest in Europe, while the price of fuel has also gone up considerably.

"The price of fuel has more than doubled since we entered out bid for the public tender. We are talking about a price hike of over 100 percent," he emphasized.

The rise concerns the collection of mixed waste, with the price going up by €0.92 on average in the city of Tartu. The price of emptying a 2.5-cubic-meter container will grow from €28.86 to €31.17. Ülle Mauer, head of the city's environmental service, said that Tartu has accepted the price hike.

She said that because mixed waste is taken to the Iru Power Plant for burning from the Aardlapalu loading station, which makes for a 400 kilometer round trip, and since the price of fuel has grown, the city agreed to an 8 percent collection price hike at Aardpalu.

Both Mauer and Luude stressed that the hike only concerns mixed waste, with the prices of collection retained at the current level for organic waste and packagings.

Even though the company does not plan to charge for waste paper collection at this time, Argo Luude said that because the price of scrap paper has fallen more than fivefold since spring and the company has to cover the expense from other revenue, a renegotiation is not out of the question in the future.

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