Results Of The Sepen’s Study On Packaging Waste

Members of the Association for Packaging and the Environment – SEPEN, completed the Study on Packaging Waste in Serbia. Results of this relevant study, conducted by Deloitte, indicate that the packaging waste management system in Serbia requires significant changes. Although the existing system achieves national objectives of collecting and recycling packaging waste in Serbia, the study recognises the current discrepancies and proposes solutions. Complying with the EU principles, the study proposes a set of measures, the most important being the introduction of a functional monitoring inspection system, equal rules for all players, a mandatory obligation of households to classify their waste and inclusion of the so-called informal sector in the existing system.

The Study was initiated by the following SEPEN members: Coca – Cola HBC Serbia, Ball Packaging Europe, Carlsberg Srbija, HEINEKEN Serbia, Apatinska pivara, Tetra Pak, PepsiCo Western Balkans, Knjaz Miloš, Terra Production, and two largest national packaging waste operators in Serbia – SEKOPAK and EkostarPak.

“The existing system in Serbia requires additional investments and an increase of the waste disposal fee, as well as a strengthening of the packaging waste collection and recycling systems applied by local self-government. Costs of improving the existing system, estimated at cca EUR200mn, are to be covered through collecting and recycling around 64 per cent of packaging waste (the current EU rate is 65 per cent) in the next 10 years. A potential introduction of alternative systems, such as a multi-material deposit one, significantly increases costs for the same period, to about EUR1.1bn. The introduction of such a system would result in around 75 per cent of collected and recycled packaging waste,” said Srđan Sušić, SEPEN Secretary-General.