PAC meeting under the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environmental Protection

Deputy Chairman of the Association of European Business Maria Karas took part in a meeting of the public advisory council for entrepreneurship development under the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environmental Protection. Within the framework of the meeting, the Association submitted comments regarding "On Amending the Law of the Republic of Belarus "On Waste Management"":

1. The rationing of all production waste, regardless of the hazard class and direction of further use, is economically unreasonable and will adversely affect the activities of business entities. Based on many years of business practice, the rationing of production waste has no theoretical value: an objective, and in most cases independent of the will of a business entity, a change in the circumstances of its activity entails an inevitable change in the volume of generated waste, regardless of whether appropriate changes are made to the instructions . The need to ration all waste, on the one hand, will require additional time and material resources on the side of business entities, and on the other hand, increases the burden on the state apparatus, creating additional bureaucratization.
2. A significant change in some terms, for example, the exclusion of the term "waste preparation", and the introduction of a new term "waste preparation", is editorial in nature and does not carry a semantic load. These changes will lead to the need for producers of production waste to conclude a large number of new contracts and an increase in the bureaucratic burden on business entities. The introduction of new terms and approaches to waste management does not stimulate an increase in the efficiency of their management, however, it will require amendments to the Waste Management Instructions of all business entities.
3. According to paragraph 1. Art. 18 of the draft Law, if the degree of hazard of production wastes and the hazard class of hazardous production wastes are not indicated in the classifier of wastes generated in the Republic of Belarus, then their establishment is ensured by the producer of these wastes. The current version of the Law provides for a rule according to which, if the producer of production waste has not ensured the establishment of the degree of hazard of production waste and the hazard class of hazardous production waste, then their establishment must be carried out by a legal entity or an individual entrepreneur, to which the right of ownership or other real right to these wastes. If the current version of the draft is adopted, producers of production waste will have to establish a hazard class for wastes of the same type that are not in the classifier, instead of the class being set once by the business entity to which the ownership of these wastes has passed.
4. The norm is ambiguously stated (clause 2, article 26), according to which, on the one hand, it is possible to collect waste without dividing it by type if waste is collected that has an identical origin, state of aggregation, degree of danger and class hazards, the procedure for handling them, but at the same time, on the other hand, a ban is introduced on mixing different types of waste during their transportation.
5. The establishment of other, additional requirements compared to the current version of the Law, is an unreasonable extension of control measures, which, given the significant amount of fines, creates additional risks in doing business.