The State Duma approved in the first reading the bill on the disposal of packaging

Deputy Prime Minister Victoria Abramchenko's proposal to reform the ROP and transfer responsibility for the disposal of packaging to its manufacturers was supported by President Vladimir Putin. He instructed the government and the State Duma to adopt the bill during the spring session. The amendments were developed by the Committee on Ecology, Natural Resources and Environmental Protection. They are proposed to be included in the federal law "On Production and Consumption Waste" and separate legislative acts.

EPR 2.0 encourages businesses to use as few hard-to-remove and hard-to-recycle materials as possible through the introduction of a green factor, and to use less packaging. According to a member of the central headquarters of the Popular Front, deputy chairman of the State Duma Committee on Ecology, Natural Resources and Environmental Protection, Alexander Kogan, now up to 50% of waste at container sites is precisely packaging from various goods.

The environmental fee will also serve as additional funding for the construction of waste sorting and recycling infrastructure. The press service of the Popular Front told TASS that the committee on ecology had prepared a number of comments and proposals for the second reading of the bill regarding the introduction of targets for recycling by type of goods, automation of control, expanding the subject of verification when included in the register of recyclers, and specifics of the interaction of recyclers with importers, methods for calculating the basic rates of eco-fee and directions for spending eco-fee funds.

The Ministry of Industry and Trade proposed to limit the use of colored plastic bottles in RUSSIA for environmental optimization. The ban is proposed to be introduced from 2024, and by the end of 2023, up to 20 types of plastic packaging may be banned in Russia. The Russian environmental operator also announced plans to reduce the amount of non-environmentally friendly packaging that is difficult or impossible to recycle. At the first stage, it is proposed to limit the distribution of PET bottles of non-traditional colors, thin shrink film, mesh bags for vegetables and fruits, a plastic bag with a doypack bottom and plastic capsules for coffee .

Soyuzmoloko's government relations manager Daniil Bobkov said that the union still has questions about some draft norms. For example, the issue of criteria for classifying an enterprise as a “packaging manufacturer”, since this issue is not yet clarified in the draft law adopted in the first reading. “We hope that by the second reading, by-laws will be published to remove this issue, or appropriate amendments will be made to the text of the bill,” he said.

Soyuzmoloko is also concerned about the approach to calculating eco-fee rates, in which the base rate, which already covers all disposal costs, is multiplied by additional “environmental” coefficients, excluding the cost of recyclables. “Probably, it is worth further clarifying this point by the second reading so that the bill establishes an equilibrium rate of the eco-fee necessary and sufficient to create an infrastructure for processing waste from the use of goods,” says Bobkov.

The eco-fee is a compensation for the utilizers of their missing profitability, the expert emphasized. According to him, it is the negative profitability of processing certain types of waste from the use of goods that is the reason for the underdeveloped infrastructure for handling ICU. The ROP institute is essentially aimed at solving this problem. The bill provides for the phased introduction of a 100% packaging recycling standard, which will mitigate the economic consequences of the new regulation, Bobkov said.

Also, by the time it was submitted to the State Duma, separate clarifications appeared in the bill regarding the expansion of business opportunities for self-disposal - for example, it will be possible to use a reduction factor for the environmental fee due to recycled materials in packaging without even engaging in self-disposal, the expert emphasized. 

On January 1, 2019, a reform of the waste management industry began in Russia, aimed at more civilized waste management, solving the problem of illegal dumps and reducing the amount of waste taken to landfills. As part of this reform, an economic regulation mechanism was proposed - extended producer responsibility for the disposal of packaging. According to the polluter pays principle, the less environmentally friendly the packaging, the higher the eco-fee will be. The measures should encourage manufacturers to switch to recyclable packaging.