Andrzej Gantner about the new proposal of the Ministry of the Climate: There is no field for dialogue

Szymon Krawiec, “Wprost”: What expectations do food producers have against the Polish model of extended manufacturer’s responsibility?

Dr Andrzej Gantner: As an agri-food sector, we expect, above all, that the Polish ROP model is primarily environmentally effective, i.e. guarantees the highest levels of selective collection, thus recycling of our packaging. Food is a product of everyday use and for this reason food packaging accounts for over 60 percent. all packaging on the market.

We expect that, according to the EU waste directive, high levels of collection and recycling should be achieved at rational and justified costs. Costs resulting from the conditions of the free market economy, and not seeing officials and politicians. This means that instead of the order and distribution model, the ROP system should be based on free market principles and resulted from the actual costs arising from the market game between introductors, recovery organizations, local governments, waste companies and recychers. All costs in this system must be transparent and controlled. According to directive, they must be net costs, i.e. costs reduced by revenues from the collected raw material.

It is a very important issue to ensure that the ROP system funds that each introductory finances the collection only of its packaging, and not the costs of collecting other waste fractions. As the introductory, we want to fully take financial and organizational responsibility for our packaging waste, but with the system met by all key conditions for us. We do not negate the need to incur financial burdens resulting from the implementation of the ROP system, but we cannot agree to be only a passive ROP payer, without any influence on the effectiveness of using this money.

You said that the Polish version of ROP must be well constructed.

This is especially important for the agri-food sector. Food packaging must ensure food safety and its quality and adequate durability. Every material we use in packaging must be approved for contact with food. Replacing one material for another is a long -lasting process, the limit of which is consumer safety. The EU PPWR regulation on packaging requires relevant levels of selective collection and recycling. If the ROP system is not strictly correlated with efficiency on a sufficiently large scale, then there is a risk that a given type of packaging can be banned for use. In food, this can even mean the clover of giving up specific product categories. That is why effective ROP is so important to us.

The trouble is that what the ministry currently proposes to us, i.e. the command and distribution, fiscal ROP, building only the monopoly of the state, does not meet any of our expectations.

Your main argument is that every manufacturer pays for their packaging?

The directive clearly says that everyone pays for a selective collection and preparation for recycling their packaging, implementing the “pollution pays” principle. We fully support this principle. Everyone pays and requires that this money serve the selective collection and recycling of its packaging, and not that the ROP system will finance many averaged costs, where the costs of collecting other municipal waste fractions will be induced. It was recovery organizations as introductory representatives that would make sure that this would not happen.

Unfortunately, they will not care, because the concept of the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage leads to their physical liquidation, which is already bizarre in itself.

Packaging ecomodulation is another aspect. So what if we give our packaging, where it will be possible, eco -module, i.e. we will increase the level of their recycution, if the packaging that is adhered for heavy money is then not collected. And if he does not collect, it will not go to recycling. And all this effort of introductory companies, but it is worth saying that also the financial effort of consumers, because ROP costs will be reflected in food prices, will be in vain. The more irrational the cost of ROP, the greater the impulse for price increases. We do not want food prices to be determined by the vision of officials and politicians. We also do not want this money not to translate into the benefits of the environment, but they were burning in incineration plants or lying on dumps, because someone will recognize that our packaging does not pay to collect. In the concept of ROP proposed by MKIŚ, theoretically no one will be responsible for it. In practice, food producers in the form of raised ROP tax will pay for ineffective ROP, and thus – the whole society, i.e. residents of municipalities.

Is there hope to reach an agreement with the ministry?

There is no good will yet. We say that the concept is wrong. The nationalization of private enterprises dealing with waste recovery and replacing them with the State National Fund for Environmental Protection and Water Management, which will not be any operator of the ROP system, but only a distributor of funds to municipalities according to algorithms developed by officials, and de facto politicians ruling at a given moment, is simply wrong and dangerous for everyone, including local governments.

The fact that the liquidation of private enterprises and replacing them with a state-owned order and distribution monopoly is a bad economic concept, we probably do not have to prove in Poland specially, because we have already done it and it ended terribly.

There are many ROP systems in the EU, of which only two are based on state-owned and ROP tax systems, and these are the worst environmentally and the most expensive systems. The rest of the systems are based on the cooperation of the recovery organization with local governments, waste companies and recycals to achieve the best results at the lowest possible costs. These costs, however, result from the free market rules, which means that they must cover real selective collection costs and recycling preparation throughout the entire chain. Interestingly, such a model ROP was proposed by the Ministry of Finance in the autumn of 2024. Why it was thrown into the trash without any justification, it is a kind of puzzle. As an agri-food sector, but it can be seen that other sectors of the economy, we have been appealing for real dialogue for many months to develop an effective ROP model and its fastest implementation. Unfortunately, to no avail. For now, Deputy Minister Anita Sowińska claims that she will be happy to conduct a dialogue, but only within the concept he proposed. This means that we do not have dialogue at the moment. It’s a shame, because environmentally effective and economically rational ROP is needed to everyone.