Environmentally friendly and profitable: in Belarus they want to go to the deposit collection of containers

At the factory in Gomel glassware is produced for the first month, but orders are barely coping with orders. The furnaces are burning day and night, seven days a week.

“For a minute with one car with a different assortment, for example, a 0.5 liter can is on the first line. There is a speed of 155 drops per minute, that is, 155 bottles, ”said Dmitry Serkov, head of the production site.

In total, three lines are involved - they produce 225 tons of glass per day. That"s enough to get a football field. Up to 180 million bottles a year, but even such a volume of products only compensates Belarus’s demand for glass containers by 15%.

At the enterprise they are convinced: milk, juices, canned goods should be packed in glass containers. Eco-friendly, but also will be beneficial. After all, it is possible that from next year in the country will introduce a deposit collection system of containers. On the packaging they will initially write how much the product itself costs, and how much the container. An empty jar or bottle can be returned to the store and get paid for it.

The presidential decree on the deposit-pledge system will be signed in the coming months. The implementation of the document will begin with the boycott of plastic containers. There is a lot of it in the country, and the practice of separate garbage collection has shown: not all PET material is suitable for recycling. Most of it will remain in landfills.

“Naturally, this will occur in stages. First of all, it is planned to introduce a ban on 0.35 tare in PET, but here the economic component plays a big role. Because glass containers are more expensive than plastic ones, ”explained Olga Sazonova, Head of the Department for Waste Management and Treatment of the Ministry of Natural Resources of Belarus.

To put it another way, glass containers will increase the cost of goods - which Belarusians will obviously remain dissatisfied with, but at the same factory in Gomel they know how to partially solve the problem. Glass can be made cheaper by reducing, for example, taxes or the price of fuel. For the time being, the cost of the same gas is very high for enterprises, which forms a high price for containers.

“Energy - 35%. Raw materials - 60%, the rest - taxes and loans. We are cheaper than German manufacturers, but not Russian. Because there the raw material and energy base is different, plus logistics is better, ”said Valery Chekhovsky, General Director of a glass factory.

Now the state and business are looking for a compromise, but it has already been decided: it"s time to get rid of plastic. The harm from it is definitely more than the benefits. It is possible that new glass factories will be built in the country, and the current capacities will increase. So far, the need for domestic packaging in the republic is only half closed.

Source: https://mir24.tv