Recycling Compliance — Hierarchy, Principles and Liability
Recycling in Georgia is a part of the whole system established by the Waste Management Code and cannot be understood in isolation, because the Code builds waste management policy on a hierarchy: prevention; preparing for reuse; recycling; other types of recovery, including energy recovery; and disposal. Recycling is the third step of this ladder — nobody resorts to it out of order: first the generation of waste must be reduced, then the product prepared for reuse, and only then does recycling follow.
In applying the hierarchy the Code requires three factors to be taken into account: the environmental benefit; technical feasibility using the corresponding best available techniques; and economic viability. A decision on recycling must therefore be substantiated ecologically as well as technically and economically — a framework that protects both the environment and the business from symbolic gestures dressed as compliance.
The Principles of Waste Management
The Code regulates waste management with a precondition of safety: management must be carried out without creating a threat to the environment and human health — in such a way that no threat is created to water, air, soil, flora and fauna; no damage is caused by noise and odour; and no negative impact is exercised on protected areas and cultural heritage.
Four principles are particularly important for practice: the precautionary principle — measures must be taken to prevent the threat caused by waste even where no scientifically confirmed data exist; polluter pays — the waste generator or holder is obliged to bear the costs connected with management; the proximity principle — waste must be processed at the nearest processing facility, taking into account environmental and economic efficiency; and the self sufficiency principle — an integrated and adequate network of municipal waste disposal and recovery facilities must be established and function. Together these principles define where and how recycling obligations are to be discharged.
Extended Producer Responsibility
The central instrument of recycling compliance is the extended producer responsibility. The direct producer of a product that subsequently becomes specific waste, and the placer of that product on the market, must take care to give the product a form which ensures the reduction of negative environmental impact and the reduction of waste generation in the production process and subsequent use; the Code supplements this requirement with obligations concerning the further management of waste generated from the product.
The extended producer responsibility organization is a non commercial legal entity created individually by a producer or collectively by producers and responsible for the fulfilment of this obligation. The Code also defines the recycling advance payment — a proportional payment which a member of the organization pays for the management of waste generated from products placed on the market. Recycling here is thus not a wish but a funded obligation, with its own institutional and financial machinery.