ROP bill published. Outlining the aims, objectives and controversy surrounding the new packaging law

On 13 August 2025, a draft law on packaging and packaging waste was published on the website of the Government Legislation Centre, which is to introduce an extended producer responsibility system in Poland. Among other things, the new legislation will oblige producers to cover the costs of managing waste from their packaging and allocate funds to municipalities for waste management.

Key objectives of the new law on packaging and packaging waste

Draft law on packaging and packaging waste developed by the Ministry of Climate and Environment aligns Polish law with EU legislation, mainly the SUP Directive and the PPWR Regulation. Both of these acts impose a number of obligations on Member States to put in place effective systems to reduce the amount of packaging waste generated and to increase recycling levels.

One of the main objectives of the Act is to shifting the costs of collecting and managing packaging waste from municipal residents to packaging producers. The IOC anticipates that this will consequently lead to a reduction in the fees paid by residents for the collection of municipal waste from their properties, while not translating into an increase in the price of packaged products.

In order to be able to fully implement the obligations imposed by the PPWR regulation, the ROP Act will also introduce a a new definition of producer, which will replace the existing definitions of introducer of packaging and introducer of packaged products.

What will the Polish ROP look like on packaging?

The main tool of the extended producer responsibility scheme will be a packaging fee levied on the producer and charged per kilogram of packaging (including the packaging of packaged products) entering the Polish market. With regard to packaging, it will replace the currently applicable product charge. As required by the PPWR Regulation, the rates of the fee will be differentiated for individual packaging materials and adapted to the requirements of the the eco-modulation system. As at present, the rates will be set by regulation by the minister responsible for climate matters, based on criteria submitted by the IOŚ-PIB.

How much will the ROP packaging charge amount to? At this point, we know that the basis for its calculation will be data from the quarterly ROP reports submitted by producers via the BDO system. The rates is to be sufficient to cover the operating costs of the ROP system, including the net costs of selective collection and processing of packaging waste, the costs of developing the collection and processing system, the costs of environmental education and the costs of tasks carried out within the scope of the ROP by NFOŚiGW and IOŚ-PIB.

ROP fees will be paid quarterly to the account of the provincial marshal, who will be responsible for controlling the correctness of the calculation and payment of fees, and then for transferring them to the NFOŚiGW (National Fund for Environmental Protection and Water Management).

Monopoly instead of competition - NFOŚiGW will take on the role of producer responsibility organisation

The collection and redistribution of funds from the packaging levy will be handled by the state fund NFOŚiGW. According to the ministerial bill, NFOŚiGW will act as an Extended Producer Responsibility Organisation (EPO) and carry out its obligations under the ROP within a closed financial circuit. In practice, this means that the activities of packaging recovery organisations will be extinguished and their place taken by a state-owned monopolist.

The funds collected will be transferred by NFOŚiGW:

• to the municipalities - for the maintenance of the collection system for packaging waste from properties/alleys (for a fixed amount) and for the collection of municipal packaging waste (per tonne),
• to entities collecting municipal waste from non-residential properties - per tonne of municipal packaging waste,
• to collectors of non-municipal packaging waste - for each tonne of packaging waste sent for recycling,
• to sorting plants, MPBs and other recyclers of packaging waste - for sorting and recycling each tonne of this waste,
• to recyclers - for recycling each tonne of waste with a negative market value.

NFOŚiGW will also be tasked with entering into agreements with these entities and spending the proceeds of the packaging fee exclusively on ROP-related activities. NFOŚiGW will not, however, own the waste or select the waste managers.

The draft new law also gives producers the option to carry out their ROP obligations themselves (i.e. organising waste collection and recycling, conducting public education campaigns, etc.). Any producer who chooses to do so must obtain a permit issued by the Minister for Climate Affairs.

Other assumptions of the planned ROP system

The draft of the new Packaging Act runs to as many as 150 pages, where the Ministry of the Environment has also detailed the other issues related to the functioning of the Polish extended producer responsibility model.

• The source of funding for the ROP system will be revenue from the packaging levy.
• Producers who pay the packaging levy will not have to reach recycling levelsand the recycling documents (DPR, EDPR) will be replaced by other reporting instruments. They will be requested by waste managers on their own behalf.
• The functioning of the BDO will be aligned with the objectives of the ROP - Among other things, there will be new document templates, such as packaging record sheets and reports.
• The duties of preparing analyses for the purpose of determining product fee rates and preparing reports (e.g. for ministries, the EC) will be taken over by IOŚ-PIB.
• The ROP system and the activities of NFOŚiGW and IOŚ-PIB will be supervised by the minister responsible for climate.
• The provincial marshals will exercise control over recyclers, exporters and intra-community suppliers of packaging waste.
• The market surveillance authority for matters covered by the PPWR will be the Trade Inspection.
• The supervisory authority in matters concerning, inter alia: waste management will be the Environmental Protection Inspectorate.

When will the ROP system be introduced for packaging?

New The law is due to enter into force as early as 1 January 2026.However, only selected provisions will apply from that date. The draft provides for 2-year transitional period, during which the rates of the packaging levy will be gradually increased to cover the costs of compensating municipalities and the investment costs of preparing the system. Full implementation of the ROP model is scheduled for 1 January 2028. when the current product levy on packaging will be abolished and the proceeds of the packaging levy will fully cover the costs of operating the ROP system.

As the IOC predicts in the Regulatory Impact Assessment:

the implementation by obligated entities of the requirements established in the PPWR, as well as the introduction of the new ROP model, will contribute to a reduction in per capita packaging waste generation of at least 1% by 2027, 2% by 2028 and 3% by 2029, so as to achieve by 2030. 5% decrease in packaging waste generation per capita and at least 10% and 15% by 2035 and 2040 respectively.

Ministerial draft ROP law under fire from producers and recovery organisations

The ROP model proposed by the Ministry of the Environment has caused considerable controversy among producers, who may be covered by the new regulations in a moment, and among representatives of the recycling industry. The main objection to the solutions presented is the cancellation of more than 20 years of experience of specialised packaging recovery organisations and their replacement by a state-owned entity that will act as an administrator in the transfer of funds from businesses to municipalities and waste management companies.

According to environmental law experts, the law is contrary to the provisions it was intended to implement. The PPWR obliges EU Member States to ensure that producer responsibility organisations can function and allows for the operation of multiple such organisations. In contrast, the new law is intended to extinguish the activities of competing recovery organisations and prevent the establishment of new producer responsibility organisations alternative to the NFOŚiGW. Moreover, the centralisation and restriction of market competition outlined in the ministerial ROP model may lead to a failure to achieve EU recycling levels and the imposition of heavy financial penalties on Poland. Such was the effect of the introduction of a centralised ROP scheme in, for example, Hungary and Croatia. At the same time, ROP schemes based on competing producer responsibility organisations are successfully operating in many Member States.

In the business community, the new packaging levy is referred to as a para-tax. Central ROP model with top-down levy rates does not ensure that the financial burden on producers is linked to the real costs of waste management packaging. The ICC denies these rumours and unequivocally indicates that the packaging levy is not of a tax nature. However, the producers' representatives point out that ROP levies structured in this way exhaust the definition of a tax, with only one difference - they will not be derived from the tax act, but from the packaging act. They also add that such a ROP model is not able to react flexibly to the market situation, including dynamically changing raw material prices. Additionally deprives producers of a real influence on the amount of fees and how they are spentand especially on the efficiency and quality of separate collection of packaging waste.