The legal regime of hazardous waste and its fines
The management of hazardous waste in Georgia is regulated by the Waste Management Code, which establishes in this sphere both the core duties and the special requirements, together with the sanctions for their breach. Violation of the rules connected with hazardous waste is one of the most strictly punished spheres of the Code: for certain cases the fine for a legal entity reaches 10 000 GEL. Therefore, for any enterprise that generates or manages hazardous waste, knowing these norms exactly is not a formality but a matter of financial risk management.
The prohibitions on discharge, littering, burning and processing
Article 36 of the Code governs the basic prohibitions connected with hazardous waste. The discharge or dumping of hazardous waste into the sewerage system or into underground or surface waters entails a fine of 5 000 GEL for a natural person and 10 000 GEL for a legal entity. The same measure punishes the littering of the environment with hazardous waste or dumping outside the waste collection container, as well as placing hazardous waste generated by entrepreneurial activity into a container not designated for it — including a municipal non-hazardous waste container. Burning hazardous waste outside an incinerator holding an environmental decision, and processing it outside a processing facility holding such a decision, entail a fine of 500 GEL for a natural person and 1500 GEL for a legal entity.
In applying this article the expert examination rule also matters: where an examination appointed for the purposes of the article recognized the waste as hazardous, the cost of conducting the examination is reimbursed by the person against whom the administrative offence report was drawn up. This means that for disputed waste the classification ultimately places both the fine and the cost of the examination on the subject of the report.
The mixing rule and registration requirements
Article 39 of the Code governs mixing: the mixing by an operator of less than 20 kg of hazardous waste with other waste, substances or materials without prior written consent entails a fine of 500 GEL for a natural person and 1 000 GEL for a legal entity. Article 40 concerns the need for registration: the collection or transport of waste without registration entails a fine of 1 000 GEL; the recovery or placement of up to 10 tons per year of non-hazardous waste without registration — 1 500 GEL; the establishment and operation of a pre-processing facility, a transfer station or a temporary storage facility for more than 50 tons of non-hazardous waste without registration — 2 000 GEL; non-compliance with registration conditions — 1 000 GEL. Carrying out without registration an activity provided for by Annex II of the Environmental Assessment Code that was not subjected to assessment by a screening decision entails a fine of 5 000 GEL.