9 month delay in bail system. What does this mean for the packaging industry?

The most important change approved at the Council of Ministers meeting held on 29 October is postponement of the launch of bail schemes - from the originally planned 1 January 2025 to 1 October 2025.

The shortening of the reference period is intended to enable introducers and deposit system operators to better preparation for separate collection. This mainly concerns adjustment of the area of commercial units (installation Bottle machines, the organisation of a bag system), so that the deposit system will cover the whole country and all consumers concerned will have the opportunity to return their deposit. The changes are due to come into effect from 1 January 2025.

It will be recalled that the discussion about the possibility of postponing the start of the bail-in system began with statements by Climate and Environment Minister Paulina Hennig-Kloska, who said on 16 October that the bail system is not ready to enter into force. On 21 October, an auto-amendment to the Packaging Act, introduced by the Minister, appeared on the website of the Government Legislation Centre, which would have given the operators of the deposit system the opportunity to request a postponement of the start date from 1 January 2025 to 1 July 2025. In the end, it was decided at the cabinet meeting to postpone the start of the deposit system even further.

The draft amendment adopted by the Council of Ministers provides for the possibility of amending existing licences for the bail system limited to a change of date the launch of the system on 1 October 2025. According to Article 7 of the amendment bill, this will take place upon application by operators who have already been authorised to operate a bail system before the amendment enters into force.

By 17 October 2024, the Minister of Climate and Environment had issued 4 final administrative decisions granting permits to operate the bail-in system, which indicated 1 January 2025 as the start date. - informed Paulina Hennig-Kloska.

The deadline for submitting an application is 7 days after the law comes into force. Operators' applications will be processed within the same timeframe. Importantly, the bill does not provide for the possibility of refusing to modify an issued authorisation to the extent that it is limited to a change in the start-up date of the system.

A consequence of the postponement of the start of the deposit system is a change in the way the levels of separate collection of packaging waste covered by the system are calculated. According to Article 9 of the draft law, these will be calculated on the basis of the weight of packaging placed on the market between 1 October and 31 December 2025.and not from 1 January to 31 December 2025, as originally envisaged.

The amendment to the Packaging and Packaging Waste Management Act obliges provincial environmental inspectorates to carry out inspections both before and after the launch of the deposit system. The tasks of the Voivodeship Inspectorates of Environmental Protection will include, among others, control of representing entities which is to contribute to ensuring that the systems have been set up correctly and are functioning as authorised.

Explore comprehensive Interzero services for all participants in the bail system.

In addition to the above amendments, the bill introduces a number of additional changes, largely advocated by businesses, including:

• exclusion of milk and milk-based drinks from the obligation to collect packaging and packaging waste,
• the introduction of a so-called closed bail system, i.e. the obligation to charge deposits at each stage of the sales chain,
• allowing retailers to use, for example, distribution centres to collect packaging waste collected from retail units without having to obtain a waste collection permit,
• Adding a requirement for each municipality to have at least one stationary collection point for packaging and packaging waste as part of a deposit system,
• making it compulsory for retailers with less than 200 m of floor space to accept reusable glass bottles²if the unit sells drinks in such bottles,
• introduction from 2026 changes in height product levy borne by introducers who have not joined any deposit scheme. The product charge will be calculated as three times the product charge rate specified for the type of beverage packaging.

Adopted by the Council of Ministers, the draft was submitted to the Sejm on 30 October 2024 and was referred to the first reading a day later. The course of the legislative process can be followed on the Sejm website.