Extended Producer Responsibility is a new regulation that obliges businesses to manage their own waste - collect, process or export it. The matter concerns to the specific waste, such as electrical equipment, oils, tires, packaging materials, and etc.
The new regulation has to come into force on December 1, 2019, but it is not enacted yet due to delays in the adoption of the bylaws. The Ministry of Environment and Agriculture must submit the documents to the government for approval by the end of December.
The problem is that government of Georgia allowed exceptions and excluded producers of dairy products and alcohol beverages to be engaged in the New Waste Management Policy. It means that their products will not be increased in price, while the consumers will have to pay more in other products. However, some businesses and NGOs perceive this initiative as discriminatory.
Why the Alcohol Beverage and Dairy Production Sector is not included in the Depository System, these questions were also raised by a foreign expert of NGO Cenn. Today the organization says that the ministry's argument regarding the dairy sector is acceptable, as they don’t want to increase price of the baby nourishment, however, the policy must apply to alcohol beverages.
"Neither soft drinks nor alcohol producers must be put in the different position. I couldn’t hear clear argument why alcohol producers must not be involved in this system," said Kakha Rukhaia, representative of Cenn.
The attitude of the state is as follows: dairy product producers and alcohol beverages remain outside the depository system. As the Ministry of Agriculture explains, they cannot cover all sectors at the first stage. So, their inclusion in the system is not excluded in the future.
"We want to start with those sectors that generate more waste and bring damages to the environment. Alcohol beverages are produced in glass bottles. This is other topic and I think that we should not concern to it at this stage”, Solomon Pavliashvili, Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Environment said.
