Is Serbia ready to implement a packaging deposit system?

The president of the Board for Environmental Protection of the American Chamber of Commerce in Serbia (AmCham), Andrea Radonjic, has stated that the entire economic situation in Serbia needs to be reviewed in order to see whether the country is ready for a deposit system the kind of which exists in other countries.

She said this in a statement for Tanjug, commenting on the Draft Amendments to the Law on Packaging and Packaging Waste, which entered the public discussion procedure on March 3 and which entails the implementation of a deposit system by which the quantities of collected packaging waste could increase by up to 90%.

– The deposit as such is the most expensive and brings good results, but if we look at Serbia, 70% are small shops, whereas only 30% are modern stores. The question is how the waste is to be collected, which type of materials this pertains to, what the collection centers are and how much it will cost – Radonjic said.

According to her, the industry needs to carry out a serious economic analysis and take a look at Serbia as it is in order to see what the best solution is when it comes to waste collection.

As she said, awareness needs to be raised among the citizens as well. She added, however, that this is not just a task for the ministries, but for the operators as well.

Američka privredna komora u Srbiji AmCham Serbia

AmCham

Board for Environmental Protection

Andrea Radonjić

deposit system

Draft Amendments to the Law on Packaging and Packaging Waste

implementation of a deposit system

economic analysis