Companies introducing products in packaging will have to pay fees to the state without having real influence on managing the waste generated from those packages — this is how the industry summarizes the Ministry of Climate and Environment’s proposal regarding the extended producer responsibility (EPR) system. Representatives of producers and recovery organizations argue that this essentially creates a new environmental tax on businesses, which will not improve the efficiency of waste collection and recycling but will only increase costs.
Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) is a “polluter pays” principle under which producers placing packaged products on the market bear financial responsibility for the subsequent waste management. In a broader perspective, the regulation aims to encourage designing more eco-friendly packaging that will not contribute to environmental pollution. According to EU requirements, EPR should have been implemented in Poland for two years already, but the system is still under development.
“EPR is a fundamental principle and a system for managing resources, packaging, and packaging waste. It has functioned in Poland for many years and should be based on EU laws and requirements as well as the experience of most countries. That should be the case. Suddenly, we wake up in a completely different reality, because signals coming from the Ministry of Climate and Environment show a totally different idea, far from environmental protection, economic efficiency, and shared responsibility as understood by thousands of companies and entrepreneurs,” Michał Mikołajczyk, sales and external relations director at Rekopol, told Newseria.
According to him, recent ideas assume that the National Fund for Environmental Protection and Water Management (NFOŚiGW) will operate the EPR system. The costs of packaging waste management will be borne by producers placing products in packaging, but the ministry plans to set fixed fee rates by regulation. This proposal shifts responsibility for achieving recycling targets from producers to NFOŚiGW, reducing producer responsibility to merely financial liability.
“EU regulations, the Polish system’s experience, and experiences from other markets show that entrepreneurs will pay—and must pay—more and more due to rising environmental requirements, but they want to participate in defining the criteria for these fees and, above all, in effectively spending the funds. It would seem obvious, but suddenly, there is a proposal introducing a tax—‘whether you work or not, you owe a thousand zlotys, pay into a fund, and the system, the office, the official will divide the money.’ This is not an environmentally friendly solution. That is why we say EPR is at a crossroads: will we go economically and environmentally friendly, or will we turn into a tax that results from political games,” Mikołajczyk said.
Experts say the proposed fee is an environmental “para-tax” and conflicts with the EU directive. According to EU rules, financial contributions paid by producers should be transparently determined among stakeholders, not imposed from above.
“For a long time, we have opposed ministerial proposals to impose a public levy, i.e., a para-tax, on all packaged products. We believe that this system, affecting producers, municipal facilities, local governments, and citizens alike, needs to be built completely differently,” said Krzysztof Baczyński, president of the Employers’ Association of the Packaging and Packaged Products Industry EKO-PAK. “We all pay health insurance contributions. Has increasing those contributions improved healthcare quality in Poland? No. We do not believe that introducing this tax will improve selective waste collection or recycling in Poland.”
If the regulations enter into force as proposed by the ministry, it may even discourage businesses from developing environmentally friendly packaging. The fixed fee does not consider the rapidly changing costs of waste management. Similar solutions to those proposed by the ministry currently exist only in Hungary and Croatia, where businesses face high system operating costs and stagnant recycling rates.
“If over 100,000 entrepreneurs in Poland placing various types of packaging on the market are to be responsible, we must engage them. Setting a rigid tax later spent according to an official’s will is not engaging entrepreneurs in pro-environmental actions,” argued Rekopol’s sales and external relations director. “As an entrepreneur, I am supposed to be responsible for making my product’s packaging as environmentally harmless as possible—for example, using fewer raw materials and making it more recyclable. We need to sit down and decide this together with waste management companies and recyclers.”
Currently, the market relies on packaging recovery organizations that help producers collect the appropriate amount of packaging waste and support recyclers. According to the ministry’s proposal, their role would be taken over by the National Fund for Environmental Protection and Water Management.
“A recovery organization is responsible for the entire chain—from packaging design and placement on the market to recycling. It is also a competence hub providing advice to all market participants on how to reduce packaging weight and size. Another function is financing. Sorting costs money, as does providing bins, bags, and recycling. All these costs are to be borne by producers placing products on the market. Additionally, there are administration, reporting, analytics, and audit costs. All these tasks should be handled by EPR organizations, i.e., commercial companies, not a public institution,” explained Jakub Tyczkowski, president of Rekopol.
The Ministry of Climate and Environment also intends to withdraw DPR documents used by recovery organizations to set recycling fees. Their removal could hamper monitoring recycling rates required by the EU.
“We are waiting for the Council of Ministers’ work plan entry and the bill draft. At the moment, unfortunately, everyone is entrenched in their positions. We have long called for dialogue, presenting our proposals and responding to local government expectations. But now, we are simply waiting for political decisions, the bill draft, and public consultations. We hope that considering strong criticism from many stakeholders, the ministry will step back and abandon the most radical solution in all of Europe,” emphasized Krzysztof Baczyński.
