On November 15, the first meeting of the Coordination Council on Waste Management, which was created in 2024, was held under the chairmanship of the Minister of Natural Resources and Environmental Protection of the Republic of Belarus Sergei Maslyak.
This council is an advisory body that coordinates the activities of republican government bodies in the field of waste management.
The main tasks of the Council include determining priority areas for improving the waste management system and developing proposals for the adoption and development of regulatory legal acts and technical regulatory legal acts in the field of waste management, and resolving problematic issues arising in the field of waste management.
The purpose of the first meeting was to discuss issues in the field of waste management that arose in connection with the entry into force on October 6, 2024 of the new version of the Law of the Republic of Belarus dated July 20, 2007 No. 271-Z “On Waste Management”.
В заседании приняли участие более 80 представителей государственных органов (Минприроды, Министерство жилищно-коммунального хозяйства, Минэнерго, Министерство иностранных дел, Министерство по налогам и сборам, Министерство сельского хозяйства, Министерство экономики, Министерство транспорта и коммуникаций), областных (Минского городского) исполнительных комитетов, и предприятий, которые оказывают услуги по перевозке отходов на объекты по захоронению отходов.
The discussion at the meeting was active and lasted more than 3.5 hours.
The discussion covered issues such as:
- development of an algorithm (methodology) for the work of waste transport enterprises on the collection, removal and transfer for disposal of industrial waste, including hazardous waste and industrial waste similar to waste from the life of the population (code 9120400), without transferring the right of ownership to the above-mentioned waste;
- a mechanism for transferring industrial waste similar to human waste (code 9120400) for sorting, taking into account the availability of appropriate capacities (facilities) for waste sorting;
- the need to obtain permission for the storage and disposal of production waste, namely waste generated after sorting, by business entities providing waste sorting services;
- the need and possibility of inclusion in the register of organizations that collect, prepare, and sort waste, business entities that collect, prepare, and sort production waste only from legal entities, and others.
All those present at the meeting were able to express their point of view and ask questions of interest to them regarding the clarification of the legislative norms that arose in connection with the entry into force of the new version of the Law of the Republic of Belarus “On Waste Management”. All questions received will be taken into account in the minutes of the meeting. After that, explanations will be formed on all the questions posed and communicated to all interested parties.
