Chamber of Commerce backs Green Dot over rival European environment and packaging law

The Malta Chamber of Commerce and Industry will endorse Greenpak, Malta's Green Dot organisation, for the recovery of packaging, while denouncing the practices of its rival scheme, Green Mt, a subsidiary of the General Retailers and Traders Union.

Meanwhile, Greenpak has challenged the GRTU to publish the fares for the scheme it will be operating to collect packaging waste.

The Chamber of Commerce recently endorsed the Green Dot organisation and its scheme, advising members to take it up accordingly.

"The Chamber of Commerce wants compliance at the least possible cost, which is what we are doing," Greenpak CEO Mario Schembri said.

As Mr Schembri explained, this year Greenpak's fees have been slashed by around 30 per cent compared to last year.

"This is because we got bigger with more companies joining."

Greenpak, established in 2004, is backed by Pro Europe, the European packaging recovery organisation to run a compliance scheme for the recovery of packaging waste in response to the EU packaging directive.

Green Mt, on the other hand, was set up very recently by retailers and waste carriers who wanted their own scheme. The Chamber of Commerce was quick to accuse the organisation of "being more focused on the needs of the waste carriers than those of the importers and manufacturers".

"For example, the prices of waste carriers tripled overnight from May to June," Mr Schembri explained.

As a result, Green Mt lost the support of the Chamber of Commerce and Federation of Industry. This sudden escalation of waste collection costs, Mr Schembri said, challenged Greenpak's rival organisation to publicise the fees for its scheme.

"While Greenpak fees have been public since 2004, GRTU's costs are yet unknown," Mr Schembri said.

At a recent press conference, GRTU director feneral Vince Farrugia insisted green Mt will be a non-profit-making organisation and that any funds generated or received will be used for environmental purposes only. GRTU, however, failed to produce rates for its scheme.

"As a result, companies find it difficult to sign up to a scheme when they don't know what it will cost them," Mr Schembri said.

Asked how two packaging waste collection schemes could possibly co-exist in a country the size of Malta, Mr Schembri admitted the situation was rather unusual.

"Two schemes will only serve to increase costs," he said, "while the duplication of work that two schemes involves will make the system more complicated".