Deposit per piece of recyclable packaging will be under RON 1, environment minister says

The deposit to be paid for one piece of recyclable packaging will be below RON 1, the Environment Minister Gratiela Gavrilescu announced today. The value proposed by the draft law is RON 2.

“Next week, the final form of the project on the tax on recyclable packaging will be ready. You will see that the value of the deposit for each package is below 1 RON,” Gavrilescu said. According to the minister, each citizen will be in a position to choose what to do with each piece of recyclable packaging, which will be his or her property.

The new law will put an end to the piles of garbage that can be found on rivers and with the landfills, the minister said, adding that next week she will attend the meeting for the final presentation of the law. According to Gavrilescu, within two or three weeks’ time, the Romanian government will publish a government ordinance regulating recyclable packaging.

In mid-March, the Environment Minister stated that the proposals regarding the amount of the deposit citizens would pay at each purchase of the product in reusable packaging will be between RON 0.5-0.6 per piece.

“We need to take great care of packaging. I hope that at the end of this week we will have a final form of the ordinance, then present it in a wider framework, which means all the factors deciding on the traceability of waste. I think the amount of RON 2 included in the ordinance should not remain around this value. The proposals are somewhere around RON 0.5 – 0.6 per piece,” said Gratiela Gavrilescu.

Currently, regulation on the management of packaging and packaging waste, says that local public authorities have the obligation to ensure separate collection of at least paper, metal, plastic and glass waste from municipal waste.