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Glass packaging recycling, current state and expectations
1. Legislative terms
The collection, container glass utilization or recycling are fundamentally specified and regulated by the Act no. 529/2002 Coll. on Packaging and the Act no. 223/2001 Coll. on Wastes in the wording of later regulation and the Ordinance of Government
no. 220/2005.
According to the Act no. 529/2002 on Wastes the obliged person responsible for collection, packaging utilization or recycling as well as for fulfilment of limits of packaging utilization or recycling is in basic terms defined as follows:
- Packer and filler - the subject who packs and fills a product into a packaging
- The subject who is to first to market packaging - importers of packaging to the SR, not producers
- The subject marketing products in packaging - importers of products in packaging to the SR as well as producers who pack and market the products on the Slovak market on their own.
The obliged person can provide collection, packaging utilization or recycling as well as fulfilment of limits of packaging utilization or recycling either
- individually, that means, the obliged person meets these obligatory limits on their own using their own technical capacity without contracting with any other persons
or
- through an authorized organisation whereas the obliged person establishes an authorized organisation together with other obliged persons or joins the already existing system of authorized organisations.
The legislative terms create conditions for establishment and activities of numerous authorized organisations of which several exist in the SR. Each of them provides collection, packaging utilization or recycling as well as fulfilment of limits of packaging utilization or recycling only for a circle of obliged persons who they have concluded a contract with.
The fundamental failure of current legislation is absence of unambiguous specification of duties to provide collection of packaging waste, its utilization or recycling. It is considered to be not clear what to understand under „fulfilment" and what documents are needed from the side of obliged persons or authorized organisations to prove their fulfilment. There is no imaginable supervision of being in compliance with the law or imposition of sanctions without this specification. In fact that means that the responsibility for fulfilment of limits remains on the basis of free will optionally.
The practical performance of current legislation does not enforce fulfilment of all obliged persons´ duties resulting from the Act no.529/2002 on Packaging and therefore not all obliged persons are involved in activities of authorized organisations.
The experience of surrounding countries shows that creation of the system can not be left for full play of the market effects. As long as the state does not supervise and enforce fulfilment of duties, concerned subjects will have no interest or reason to look for an optimal solution to the problem as they are not involved in the environmental pressure.
2. Current practice
The current system of collection, utilization or container glass recycling using existing legislation
- does not oblige all obliged persons to get involved
and
- enables to avoid supporting of real collection, utilization or container glass recycling through proving „ the process of utilization".
The analysis of the state of the system of collection and packaging waste recycling leads to a conclusion that the current system is inefficient and at a standstill from the point of its development. There are real worries that
- there will not be made preconditions for fulfilment of the goals of waste management in the area of packaging waste recycling and glass packaging recycling especially
- there will not be achieved obligatory limits for utilization and recycling in the next years.
3. The level of container glass recycling
The calculation of Container Glass Recycling Rate (= CGRR) is in accordance with the following relation:
Total weight of waste container glass collected in the SR (t)
------------------------------------------------------------------------- x 100
Total weight of fulfilled container glass placed in the SR (t)
The figures essential to the determination of the values of the numerator and denominator as well as the result itself that means, the value of CGRR are not open to public. It is not known if such information with correct values and validity for all the SR is edited by any of authorities of state administration and/or authorized organisations.
Given the public inaccessibility to the correct values valid for all the SR and needed for the calculation of CGRR the following data have been stated with educated guess only:
- import and export of empty glass containers
- import and export of filled glass containers
- export of waste container glass collected in the SR
-
waste container glass collected in the SR and not used for recycling, that means, not for production of new glass containers.
In the following graph there is an overview of achieved values CGRR in the SR from 1997 to 2007. For comparison there are given minimal values of recycling set in the Ordinance of Government:
- no. 22/2003 for years 2003 and 2004
- no. 220/2005 for years 2005, 2007, 2009, 2011 and 2012
The minimal values of recycling for the year 2006, 2008, 2010 have been set using the linear interpolation from the values in the Ordinance of Government no. 220/2005.
Container Glass Recycling in the SR - estimate
The success rate of the collection of waste container glass is visible in the attached graph whereas the number of inhabitants of the SR is represented by 5.4 Mio.
For comparison we state publicly available values of Austria which were achieved between the years 2002 and 2007 in collection of waste container glass. CGRR stood at 84% in 2007.
Collection of container glass in the SR per 1 inhabitant - estimate (compared with the results in Austria)
If the yearly growth of glass container consumption increases by 0.5% and the collection of glass container waste by 5%, we estimate the level of container glass recycling as follows:
Container glass recycling in the SR - estimate (yearly growth of supply of waste container glass at 5% from 2008 - estimate)
4. The future trend
If the fulfilment of goals of waste management in the area of packaging waste recycling belongs to a social interest, it is necessary to aim the efforts of the state and professional public at:
- Serious and fast changes in the Act on Packaging and Waste
- Achievement of real fulfilment of obligation of obliged persons resulting from the Act on Packaging supporting the real collection, utilization and container glass recycling
- Significant increase of systematic and focused financial support of the system of collection and separation of waste glass containers in communities
- Systematic involvement of collecting and recycling companies in the system of collection and separation of waste glass containers.
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