Application of the Regulation on Collection of Carrier Bags: 298,136 KM Collected So Far

The Regulation on fees for plastic carrier bags has been in effect since February 12, 2014, and by the end of June 2014, 298,136.00 KM was paid into the Fund for Environmental Protection of FBiH, writes the BiH news agency Patria.

The most significant share in the collection of fees for plastic carrier bags comes from Tuzla Canton with 28% and Sarajevo Canton with 25%.

Data for the second reporting period will arrive by mid-2015, given that the deadline for submitting reports is March 31, 2015.

- All collected funds based on fees, operating on the principle of "polluter pays", the Fund, in accordance with the Law on the Fund for Environmental Protection of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, is obliged to distribute between the Federation (Fund) and the budgets of all cantons in the ratio: Federation (Fund) 30% and cantons 70% (current transfers).

After transfers to cantons, the Fund was left with the amount of 89,440.80 KM, and all funds, based on the announced Public Call for Allocation of Funds for the Implementation of Programs and Projects for Remediation of Damage Caused by Natural Disasters for 2014, were distributed through projects for cleaning riverbanks of waste carried during floods. The Fund itself is investing a total of 620,000 KM in these projects.

In addition to these fees, cantons also receive funds from environmental fees upon registration of motor vehicles and fees paid by air polluters, which are mostly spent non-purposefully. The basis for such a claim, according to the Fund, is the fact that only two cantons, namely Una-Sana Canton and Sarajevo Canton, have submitted an overview of the expenditure of funds transferred by the Fund invested in programs and projects to improve air quality.

PROBLEMS IN IMPLEMENTING THE REGULATION

Given that there is no unified information system and database in FBiH, nor at the BiH level, to track the quantities of bags that were imported, produced, and sold on the BiH market, there are no real data with which the Fund's data could be compared, except for CCI data.

Namely, the estimated quantity of carrier bags placed on the BiH market is approximately 100 million per month, or more precisely, 600 million bags on a semi-annual basis. If we say that 60% of these quantities are placed on the FBiH market, that amounts to 360 million bags in FBiH on a semi-annual basis. The actual reported quantities to the Fund amount to approximately 32 million bags (which is only 8% of the assumed quantities), of which only 5.5 million carrier bags are subject to payment according to the provisions of the Regulation, or 1.5%.

Therefore, the key priority is the establishment of a unified information system and database, which, in addition to data on potential payers of fees for all categories of waste, would include data on all other entities in the waste management system (importers, producers, authorized collectors, recyclers, etc.) at all levels of government.

Another reason for the necessity of databases is to track invested funds, i.e., benefits, arising from the investment of collected funds for specific types of waste in improving the overall system.

A large number of carrier bags have been reported as bags for packaging refuse materials, which are not subject to fee payment, as defined by the Regulation. According to the Fund's data, the number of refuse bags placed on the market is three times higher than the number of carrier bags.

- According to our findings and submitted reports, there are stores that have reported hundreds of thousands, even millions of bags as "bags for refuse materials" - the Fund states.

FUND'S RECOMMENDATIONS

Based on the analyses conducted so far, the Fund's Management proposes the adoption of amendments and additions to the Regulation by the Federal Ministry of Environment and Tourism.

It is necessary to start with inspections of liable parties by the inspectorate. In this regard, the Fund has also created a list of liable parties for which it believes it is necessary to verify the data submitted to the Fund, and this list will be forwarded to the inspection authorities for further use.