Updated: Eco-contribution refunds scheme 'is discriminatory'

Adds government reaction

Some 300 companies who take part in packaging waste recovery schemes are forming a cooperative to press the government to include them in a scheme for a refund of their exemptions.

The companies, who form part of GreenPak - a scheme which provides member companies with packaging waste collection - complained at a press conference today about a draft legal notice issued by the government last month which excluded 57 per cent of the products on which eco-contribution was paid by the member companies.

"This draft legal notice is discriminatory and totally unacceptable," Martin C. Borg, acting secretary of the cooperative said.

He said that only the beverage industry and companies forming part of a domestic waste collection scheme could claim a refund for their eco-contributions.

He said the other companies had also paid their eco-contributions in terms of the law and expected refunds for packaging-waste disposal as they had been promised. Such refunds, he said, would run into hundreds of thousands of euro.

He said that GreenPak had handed a position paper to the Resources Ministry calling for wider eligibility to the eco-contribution refunds, a simplified system and faster payment of the refunds - with some having been due since 2006.

Government reaction

The Finance Ministry and the Resources Ministry in a joint reaction to the GreenPak statements said they had noted the organisation’s commitment to reform its operations so as to better meet obligations which had been in place since 2004.

The ministries said any refunds had to be calculated on the basis of success achieved in the recovery of the material which the producers would have put on the market.

The ministries stressed that the draft legal notice was open to consultation. Furthermore, as declared in the 2010 Budget speech, the exemptions would be introduced gradually over a number of months.

After considering the comments made, the government would bring the legal notices into force in the coming weeks and start the refunds/exemptions after the necessary verification.