2021/0584/SK
EC/EFTA
SK Slovaquie
  • S10E - Emballages
2021-12-08
2021-09-14

- packaging

- packaging waste

Draft Act amending Act No 302/2019 on a deposit return scheme for disposable beverage containers and amending certain acts, as amended, and amending Act No 79/2015 on waste and amending certain acts, as amended

Pursuant to Act No 302/2019 on a deposit return scheme for disposable beverage containers and amending certain acts, as amended, a deposit return scheme for disposable beverage containers will be launched in the Slovak Republic on 1 January 2022. At the beginning of 2021, the administrator of the deposit return scheme for disposable beverage containers (hereinafter the 'administrator') was selected, and the currently selected administrator is ensuring preparation of the deposit return scheme in accordance with the founding documents approved by the Ministry of Environment.

The purpose of the amendment of the Act is primarily more precise legislative regulation of the cooperation of the Ministry of the Environment of the Slovak Republic and the administrator enshrined in the founding documents, linked to ensuring the functioning of the deposit return scheme. The draft Act also fine-tunes some of the legislative settings of the deposit return scheme, which need to be aligned with the functionalities of the deposit return scheme. This concerns, for example, the exclusion of certain disposable beverage containers from deposit [§ 3(2)], whether in terms of certain marketing methods (international transport, duty-free zones) or in terms of the volume or dimensions of containers that are technically impossible to accept in the available return infrastructure, i.e. using container return machines. Another change concerns the method used to collect beverage containers subject to a deposit by a distributor who collects packaging waste on a sales area of less than 300 m² [§ 5(1)(f)]. In agreement with the administrator, more ambitious return targets for deposit return disposable beverage containers are regulated.