The Ministry of Climate and Environment presented a draft law introducing the concept of Extended Producer Responsibility (“EPR”) into the national legal system. The EPR aims to be a revolution in the creation and management of waste.
According to the draft bill, the EPR system is:
„(…) a set of actions which have been taken to ensure that producers will take financial responsibility or financial and organisational responsibility during the product's life cycle when it becomes waste"
The producer should not only be defined as an entity which has a factory in Poland, but also include EU or non-EU producers who sell their goods in Poland.
According to the proposed legislation, waste prevention actions shall be taken at least to:
- promote and support sustainable production and consumption models;
- promote the design, production and use of the goods, which are resource-efficient and durable (without artificial shortening of the product’s life cycle);
- in the case of products containing materials that are critical resources, prevent these materials from becoming a waste;
- promote the re-use of products and development of the systems which support the repair and the re-use of products (in particular with regard to electrical and electronic equipment, textiles, furniture, packaging and construction materials and products);
- in addition, producers are also obliged to apply self-control mechanisms, in particular audits, for the financial management of environmental obligations, collecting data, reporting on products placed on the market, collecting and processing waste from their products.
Some of the regulations will come into force on January 1, 2021. The rest of the regulation is to enter into force finally on 1 January 2022, so that entities have time to properly design products.
Autorzy:
