The EPR system has come into effect, but manufacturers and distributors still don’t know what to do

By: Trademagazin Date: 2023. 06. 30. 17:27

The EPR system will come into effect on July 1st, but most manufacturers and distributors are still only guessing about what they have to do, what effect this will have on their business, and moreover, if they are interested, they get different information from everywhere. In addition, the situation of traders on the market of vitamins and dietary supplements is made more difficult by the fact that, in addition to a significant decrease in real wages, customers are the first to give up on health care and prevention, so that prevention is currently being pushed into the background in more and more families. While some distributors are already experiencing minor declines in Budapest and around Pest County, they are already reporting a significant decline in traffic in the poorer regions of the country.

Who will be responsible? EPR, i.e. extended producers responsibility, is essentially the basis of the European Union’s waste policy, according to which the costs of waste management at the end of the life cycle of individual products must be paid to the producers. With this principle, the goal would be to curb waste production and reduce the environmental burden, and although the system will be introduced in our country from July 1, most manufacturers and distributors are still not aware of the details.

“Most people try to inquire in vain, but they get conflicting information from everywhere. Unfortunately, even 2 days before the introduction of the regulation, I searched for it in vain in the “frequently asked questions about EPR” topic, entered in different ways, to this day there is no such page available, or if there is, it can be very difficult to find it. For the time being, it is questionable what will happen to the packaging materials that the distributors obtained earlier and those that were obtained after July 1st. There will be manufacturers and distributors of packaging materials who will include the fee on their invoices, thus increasing the price of the products, and there will be those who will pass the charge on to the customer. It is quite certain that all this will further complicate the administration of companies. And then we haven’t even mentioned the background systems, which should support administration and invoicing, in addition to knowing the rules, because these are also things that cannot be implemented in a day. If we don’t know what is needed, the developers don’t know what to develop for us either.”

– explained András Jánvári, e-commerce expert, managing director of multi-vitamin.hu.