Rosprirodnadzor proposed to tighten control over waste disposal

So far, the authorities do not have data on all waste processing capacities.

Rosprirodnadzor asked the government to introduce licenses for non-hazardous waste disposers or to enter their capacity in a special register. Unscrupulous companies will be excluded from the register, depriving them of the right to work with garbage.

The head of the Federal Service for Supervision of Natural Resources, Svetlana Radionova, proposed introducing licenses for the disposal of hazard class I-V waste generated from used goods or packaging (including plastic, glass, paper and cardboard) in order to control their recycling. Another way to control is to enter information about recyclers in an electronic register indicating the number of waste processing capacities. If false information is found during the checks, they will be excluded from this register and will not be able to continue their activities. This is stated in a letter from Radionova, sent on February 8 to the apparatus of the government and the Ministry of Natural Resources. RBC has a copy of the letter, its authenticity was confirmed by a representative of the Ministry of Natural Resources.

Deputy Prime Minister Victoria Abramchenko instructed the departments to prepare mechanisms for effective control over waste disposal, says her representative Marta Galicheva. According to her, the task is to completely eliminate the practice of concluding fake contracts when independently implementing Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR): she assumes that manufacturers of goods and packaging dispose of them themselves or agree on this with specialized recycling companies. Changes to the laws governing the reform of the EPR, which should come into effect from 2023, just involve the verification of companies that carry out the actual disposal, says Galicheva. We are talking about checking the balance of their capacities and commitments, which requires an appropriate register.

The Ministry of Natural Resources also supports the initiative to introduce an electronic register of recyclers and advocates transparency in waste disposal and traceability of all stages of waste management, says a representative of the ministry. RBC sent a request to Rosprirodnadzor.

Why Rosprirodnadzor decided to tighten control

Manufacturers of goods and packaging within the framework of the EPR conclude direct contracts with disposal plants for a full cycle from collection to recycling of waste or only for their disposal. After that, the plants draw up a recycling act, which reflects the volume of processed raw materials, and the company submits this document along with reporting to Rosprirodnadzor. But now the utilizers are not required to report to Rosprirodnadzor or other departments about the availability of capacities and their utilization.

Last fall, the service began an unscheduled inspection of disposers, which should last until the end of 2022. She identified two non-existent firms and 40 violations in other companies.

At the end of 2021, the agency applied to large business associations with a request to provide information on the capacities of utilizers, whose services their members use to fulfill their obligations under the EPR, but did not receive this information.

Due to the identified violations and lack of data, Radionova proposed to tighten control over utilizers by amending the law on licensing certain types of activities or the law on production and consumption waste. She also asked the government to give the service the opportunity to involve independent organizations and experts to conduct inspections of recycling enterprises.

In accordance with the concept of Extended Producer Responsibility, the Russian Environmental Operator (REO, curator of the waste reform) has been forming a base and creating a register of recyclers for more than a year, says its representative. The company must carry out final verification and complete the formation of this registry by July 1, 2022. An alternative to possible permanent unscheduled inspections of a business can be a digital solution, which is being finalized by REO, he added.

How do businesses feel about tightening controls?

Business associations surveyed by RBC generally support the idea of Rosprirodnadzor to tighten control.

Data on the utilizers of goods and packaging within the framework of the RPR should be entered in the register, Elena Emelyanova, executive director of the Association of Manufacturers of Glass Containers, is sure: “This will make the cullet processing industry more transparent and improve the quality of the raw materials produced during recycling, which the glass industry will later use for production. containers. Now associations have to conduct audits of utilizers on their own, while only Rosprirodnadzor is able to "see" all the capacities of utilizers, adds the head of RusPEK (it includes such large manufacturers as Coca-Cola, Danone, Procter & Gamble) Lyubov Melanevskaya.

Co-owner of Vtor-Plast, Alexander Svidovsky, is convinced that the licensing of recyclers and their inclusion in the register will streamline the work of such plants. So it will be possible to exclude the possibility of data manipulation in the acts of disposal by unscrupulous companies.

The head of the League of Waste Paper Recyclers, Denis Kondratiev, warns that it will be difficult for officials to control the number of capacities and their loading. For example, the same equipment can process 40 tons of waste paper per day or only 15 tons of laminated cardboard. Kondratiev believes that industry organizations could check such enterprises. Their members are professionally versed in the recycling process and are interested in expelling unscrupulous players from the market.

Source: https://www.rbc.ru/