The reference for a preliminary ruling relates to the interpretation of Article 15(a) of Directive 2006/12/EC on waste and, in particular, to the ‘polluter pays’ principle. The ECJ concluded that Article 15(a) of the Waste Directive must be interpreted as not precluding national legislation which, for the purposes of financing an urban waste management and disposal service, provides for a tax or charge calculated on the basis of an estimate of the volume of waste generated by users of that service and not on the basis of the quantity of waste which they have actually produced and presented for collection. It is, however, incumbent upon the national court to review, on the basis of the matters of fact and law placed before it, whether the tax for the disposal of private solid urban waste at issue in the main proceedings results in the allocation to certain ‘holders’, in the case in point hotel establishments, of costs which are manifestly disproportionate to the volumes or nature of the waste that they are liable to produce.