Parliament approves waste reform

With 75 percent of waste in Slovakia currently ending up on dumps, Parliament on Tuesday approved a bill aimed at teaching Slovaks to separate and recycle waste. The bill was hotly discussed, with as many as 2,665 entities providing comments after it was released for debate by the Environment Ministry last year. Meanwhile, 300 further amending proposals were included in the bill in Parliament, with the Opposition pointing out that this figure was higher than the number of individual paragraphs in the legislation. The law does away with the Recycling Fund and the paying of recycling fees by producers and importers. It introduces the principle of broader responsibility, which means that producers and importers of products will be responsible for individual products from their placement on the market right until it comes time to dispose of them. Separated waste should be treated by producers via so-called organisations of producers' responsibility. This should remove the burden from municipalities, which currently take care of all communal waste. Meanwhile, the public should pay only for waste that hasn't been separated, which could even result in a reduction in fees in certain locations. The bill introduces tougher conditions for scrapyards, which won't be able to pay for purchased metal in cash. Meanwhile, the purchased metal will have to be stored for at least seven days and the buying process will be monitored by cameras. The legislation will come into force as late as on January 1, 2016.