The eco-tariff is one of the elements of extended producer responsibility (EPR – Ed.), which transfers the responsibility for recycling their products to companies. The EPR itself has been operating in Russia since 2015, but the old mechanism was considered ineffective, so from 2024 it will begin operating in a new version, which is expected to make the market for recyclable materials more transparent and reduce the waste stream. to landfills.
Under the new mechanism, manufacturing companies can organize processing themselves, but they will also have to confirm their capabilities with Rosprirodnadzor or entrust this work to associations, which will also have to be verified by the agency. If the above two options are not suitable, you will have to pay an environmental fee, the amount of which for each category of goods was developed by the Ministry of Natural Resources.
President of the Union of Juice, Water and Beverage Manufacturers Maxim Novikov notes that the proposed ecological tariffs are many times higher than the current ones, and also significantly higher than the indicators that were discussed in the summer of 2023. ” According to industry calculations, the price increase when responsibility is transferred to manufacturers of containers for water will be 6.99%, for soft drinks – 3.3%, for juices – 1.8% (not including profit margin of retail chains).Proposed increases Cargo growth rates will be even higher: 8.32%, 4.38% and 4.49%, respectively,” Novikov said.
When the cost of a product increases by 1%, demand falls between 1.3 and 1.6%, he says. “Therefore, the possible decrease in demand for packaged water could be up to 13.3%, for soft drinks 7.1% and for juices 7.2%. These changes in demand will inevitably lead to a fall in budget revenues at all levels and will cause “This increases the risk of bankruptcy for some manufacturers; small and medium-sized companies are most at risk,” Novikov said.
To pay less for environmental fees, companies will have to make their packaging more environmentally friendly
Previously, experts from the construction and wood sectors spoke to Rossiyskaya Gazeta about the increase in the cost of products due to environmental rights.
As REO reported to RG, if standards are increased in 2024, the maximum change in price may occur for Dobry juice in combined packaging (Tetrapack) in a volume of 2 liters – 0.495 rubles, in percentage – 0.21%. “The current recycling standard is 20%, in 2024 – 30%. It is proposed to increase the environmental collection rate from 2,378 rubles to 29,067 rubles per ton. It turns out that the environmental collection rate per 1 kg of packaging will be 29 rubles and the weight of one package is 0.035 kg. Therefore, the cost of disposal of one package of juice will be 1.01 rubles. Please note that the price has not changed since 2016,” the company noted.
If we talk about the maximum growth in percentage terms, then REO believes that this is the Chernogolovka Cola drink in a one-liter glass container – an increase of 0.3%, or 0.391 rubles.
Water has the maximum increase – 0.19%, or 0.094 rubles, it is still water “Holy Spring” in a one-liter PET bottle, as indicated by REO.
REO expects the largest increase in ecoboro to occur in the clothing and textile packaging categories, but notes that again this will not significantly affect the final cost of the product.
On the other hand, to reduce environmental fees, companies can make their products more environmentally friendly, for example, they will use recyclable materials, notes Valeria Gulimova, executive director of the Association for the Promotion of the Circular Economy “Resource “.
“Now, for marketers developing products, such a factor as environmental friendliness is not relevant at all. The exception is products that are positioned as “green.” Once the new EPR mechanism starts working, you will have to pay more for non-organic products. “Packaging, so priorities will change. For the market, there will be drastic changes, which will take time to adapt to,” Gulimova said.
Furthermore, in his opinion, companies will be interested in collecting recyclable materials, because, for example, dirty cardboard can no longer be recycled. And in a bag of organic waste, it doesn’t have much of a chance of staying clean. One possible scenario: Additional containers for certain factions will appear at container sites near your home. “But the garbage will still be mixed and additional sorting will be necessary. In addition, because of this, the sites themselves will grow, which is not possible everywhere,” notes Gulimova.
If companies pay an ecological fee, then the State (think of operators and regional authorities) will take care of recycling, but how will they work effectively if there is no two-stream system, i.e. a separate tank for mixed and recyclable waste ? available everywhere. Therefore, in some regions cardboard still has no chance of reaching processors. And even when there are two repositories, their contents are usually not very different. Therefore, we should expect that next year Russians will help the environment not only with the ruble, but also with new ecological habits; otherwise the system will never work globally.
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