On the right way on a bumpy road

Hungary’s product charge system has been trying to enforce the responsibility of producers for 15 years. A comparison with the systems of other EU member states would be obvious, but things seem to be more complicated. – International comparison is difficult, since old member states opted for different means of achieving their environmental objectives – says György Viszkei, managing director of ÖKO-Pannon Nonprofit Kft. He added that in several Eastern European member states the same system exists. In the 1995-2002 period attention was directed to environmental costs and waste collection with recycling activity increasing. From 2002 regulation changed directions a few times, from focusing on sanctioning non-compliers to increasing budgetary revenues. According to György Viszkei, the 12 years of implementing the Act on Environmental Product Charges have been characterised by constant changes. 1 January 2009 brought the last significant change when unified charges were levied on all products and packagings. He thinks that this step eliminated certain discriminative elements, but at the same time brought extra cost to the affected companies. New regulation had an impact on the packaging industry as well: for instance, from 1 January 2009 a charge per piece was imposed not only on plastic bags, but also on plastic sachets used for packaging fruits or bakery products. – These sachets cost HUF 0.5-2 to make and their unified HUF 5.30 charge per piece was real burden for producers – reveals Miklós Nagy of the Hungarian Association of Packaging and Materials Handling (CSAOSZ). Producers’representatives met members of parliament in March and the result was an amendment to the law that re-established the previous, weight-based charge system from 1 June. Many producers still think that further simplification is needed. – Environmental product charge is a form of sanctioning and not a method of collecting budgetary revenues – states György Viszkei, managing director of ÖKO-Pannon Nonprofit Kft.