Draft law on packaging and packaging waste in Assembly of Serbia

The Draft law on packaging and packaging waste, which was forwarded by the Government to the Assembly for adopting, should enable larger protection of environment, reduce creation and disposal of packaging waste, as well as reuse and recycling of packaging.

The Draft law stipulates conditions that must be met by the packaging in order to be used, management of packaging and packaging waste, as well as reporting on packaging and packaging waste.

Basic principle of the law is distribution of responsibility among all business subjects in accordance with the “polluter pays” principle during the life cycle of the product.

Regulations from that law would be also applied to the imported packaging, packaging that is produced in Serbia, as well as to all packaging waste, while containers for road, railway, water or air international transportation would be excluded.

Packaging can be used only if it meets basic criteria concerning environment protection, safety and protection of packed product, and it must not exceed limit values of lead, mercury and other harmful components.

According to the explanation, that Law should create conditions for implementation of international obligations from the Directive on packaging and packaging waste, as well as for trade exchange with the countries of EU.

About 2.2m tons of communal waste is annually collected in Serbia, and there are about 180 official dumps.