As of the end of the summer, many public trash cans had disappeared from Tallinn's streets as the contract with the company managing the facilities had expired.

This included the potential end of the box-type garbage cans affixed to, for instance, street light posts, at around shoulder height – depending on your height.

As well as a procurement framework on a citywide basis, Tallinn City Government is also leaving procurement to its eight districts.

Deputy Mayor of Tallinn Pärtel-Peeter Pere (Reform), who has the responsibility for garbage, said: "When this is ready, we will order new trash cans based on needs, both three-part cans for sorting waste and single-unit ones, where necessary."

The City of Tallinn says it plans to begin installing the new garbage cans by the end of March or early April.

Artur Zahharov, deputy head of the urban management department at one district – Lasnamäe, the most populous - said the procurement process has been confusing, and the administration may have to go through a second or even third round, since previous procurement processes were canceled.

While the district was notified both that it had to procure new trash cans and that there were deficiencies in the existing description of same "somewhere in mid-September," Zahharov said that the request was made to then cancel that procurement and await a new one, with a new "technical" description of the trash cans wanted.

The previous cancellation was the result of legal concerns, Zahharov said. This was because they had already purchased 16 new refuse receptacles the previous year, and so may have infringed procurement law if they went ahead.

Lasnamäe District Administration initially aimed to purchase 13 new trash cans, at an approximate cost of €10,000.

However, the Lasnamäe District Administration handed over the mapped-out location to the public utilities department – in effect a citywide framework for the procurement process, rather than district-specific.

Marja-Liisa Veiser (Isamaa), who heads up another district administration, Mustamäe, found Deputy Mayor Pere's directive felt more like an "order," written in a "commanding tone," and saying the procurement was urgent and should be carried out immediately.

Then, once the district administration had got the ball rolling, another message came from the same deputy mayor, this time that the procurement had to be canceled.

"The reason given was various technical conditions set by the department," Veiser said, a similar explanation to the Lasnamäe case.

Mustamäe had already begun drafting a contract with a supplier at that point. A new procurement process has since had to be announced, she added.

Veiser said that this was unacceptable

"It can't be the case that one day we're told one thing, and the next day something else, adding that to do so was a "massive waste of resources."

 Deputy Mayor Pere said that it wasn't an order, but that the district administrations were first asked to assess whether new trash cans were needed at all.

Two districts — Põhja-Tallinn and Lasnamäe — did not find it necessary to make a new procurement, he added.

"Some districts either had no contracts or the contracts were outdated or had disappeared entirely. The situation was very chaotic, and it surprised everyone," Pere went on.

The current Reform-Isamaa-Eesti 200-SDE Tallinn coalition entered office in the spring, meaning this was the first time the city under its new administration had tried to make a procurement of trash cans in a unified manner in this way.

The city's environmental and public utilities department drafted guidelines for the district.

Pere said feedback from the Tallinn City Center District in the meantime requested clarifications, which were duly carried out, but district administrations had already started preparing their procurement processes.

As a result, the clarifications required the cancellation of ongoing procedures, Pere added, stressing that there were no "errors" made.

"As far as I am aware, none of the documents were incorrect," he said.

There had been no clear requirements that, for instance, new trash cans had to be new and unused.

"We simply asked for this requirement to be considered, and that's the whole story," Pere concluded.

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