The Russian Ecological Operator (REO, curator of the waste reform) plans to involve Sberbank, VTB, MegaFon and Rostelecom's subsidiary Big Three in the development of state information system which will track and account for the movement of waste generated from used goods and packaging, as well as manufacturers which must pay an environmental fee. Denis Butsaev, general director of REO told RBC about it.
Eco-tax is paid for the disposal of goods and packaging, including those imported into the country, under the extended producer responsibility (EPR). The mechanism has been operating since 2014, but most market participants still do not pay the tax. According to REO, in 2019 only 3.7 billion rubles were collected from manufacturers, and this is the maximum amount of annual fees for all time.
At the end of 2020, Deputy Prime Minister of the Russian Federation Viktoria Abramchenko (in charge of ecology in the government) agreed on a new concept of EPR, which increases the requirements for manufacturers and exporters. As the CEO of RT-Invest (a subsidiary of Rostec) Andrey Shipelov told RBC, it is expected that from 2023 this reform will contribute by about 100 billion rubles a year.
REO expects to become the operator of the system for accounting for the movement of waste from used goods and packaging within the framework of the EPR, if this is supported by the government.
IT systems for EPR should provide full transparency of the industry in the field of solid municipal waste (MSW) processing, explained Denis Butsaev. According to him, they will contain data on the movement of all waste from goods and packaging, as well as on utilizers and their capacities. “For the EPR system to work, the information system must include several registers: those who pay, those who utilize (those who have the capacity, not just a license), and the register of packaging that needs to be monitored,” he clarified.
“We have reached an agreement with the Ministry of Natural Resources, which initially supported us in this work, and with Rosprirodnadzor and other interested departments that there should be a single system so as not to produce many sectoral ones. The new system should ensure full transparency of the industry both in MSW and in other types of waste,” Butsaev commented.
