Currently garbage collection is restricted to a few areas of the city and is often

sporadic or unreliable. There is no collection at all in the three rural districts:

Dangkor, Meanchey and Russey Keo.

There is no formalized charging system and the collection of commercial garbage is

essentially bribe-based. The government and Cintri are working on plans to extend

the collection area and introduce a formal charging system.

A polluter-pays-based collection tariff structure is under discussion, which will

tax those most able to pay and subsidize the poor. However large parts of the city

are not accessible to collection trucks and some creative thinking is being applied

to this problem.

Sangkat authorities will be paid a 10 percent commission for collecting fees within

the serviced collection areas.

Consultant Juni Anai says only 60 percent of fees are collected currently because

of disagreement between MPP and users in setting fee rates, a complicated tariff

for businesses, and unclear criteria for categorizing customers.

"Business establishments receive higher benefit (through frequency, cleaner

streets) than households so we recommend higher fee rates for businesses. Consensus

on the fee must be made with each customer. The fee structure must be reviewed regularly,

and based on the amount of waste produced and the cost of the solid waste management

operation," said Anai.