Manager of the Environment Pollution Prevention Office under the Ministry of Environment Tatiana Tugui, in a news conference at IPN, said a number of actions were taken in 2016 to deal with waste and there are real preconditions for solving this problem. “The country was divided into eight regions and feasibility studies started to be developed for each region so as to build integrated waste management systems. This year the long-awaited Waste Law, which covers also chemical substances, was passed by Parliament. Thus, a part of the products that contain chemicals will have limited access to the domestic market,” stated Tatiana Tugui.

Starting with 2017, when the Waste Law takes effect, the sale of a number of products that contain quicksilver on the market, especially thermometers, will be banned. “Regrettably, owing to the absence of a network for collecting these products, these end their life at waste dumps and are eliminated inappropriately. The law contains a series of regulations that will help promote the law’s principles that “not only the polluter pays” and that “the producer bears increased responsibility,” stated Tatiana Tugui.

She also said that the increased responsibility of the producer is a new principle that refers to chemicals. “When the manufacturer provides a product, this should bear responsibility for this product starting with its manufacture and ending with its removal. Thus, based on the new principle of increased responsibility of the producer and on the new law, there will be managed five categories of chemicals: packing (packing producers will be obliged to create packing collection networks); electronic waste, which should be collected separately and recycled as these contain such heavy metals as mercury and lead and should be managed appropriately, and used oils, rubber and cars.  

Tatiana Tugui underlined that another goal of the new legislation is to ensure the separate collection of municipal waste based on four recyclable fractions: paper, glass, metal, and plastic. This means that the local public authorities must make effort for separate recycling systems to be developed and promoted not only as one initiative, but by an effort aimed at sensitizing the population so that these are accepted and used, including by recycling companies that will have special equipment for collecting each type of waste separately.