‘Privatised’ recycling necessary for EU targets, but small business feels the big pinch

Have you been recycling religiously your plastics, organic and municipal waste in the last 10 years?

The ritual of Malta’s regular and timely waste collection service seems to have been upended by the plastic recycling ‘tax’ introduced with the consortium led by Malta’s beverages producers and importers, and major supermarket retailers.

Just two weeks into the new system of returning plastic and wine bottles – intact – to reverse-vending machines, voices on social media are questioning why a stream of plastic, cans and glass once collected at people’s doorsteps, has been dislocated to retail points.

Malta’s new beverage recycling scheme has seen 10c added to the cost of applicable beverages, with consumers only able to recoup this charge by depositing the empty containers – intact and with readable barcodes – at vending machines at key supermarkets and points across Malta and Gozo.

The scheme has been licensed to a private operator, BCRS Ltd, whose directors form part of Malta’s largest beverage companies, from Farsons to Marsovin and General Soft Drinks, among others – associations of importers, manufacturers and supermarkets. The companies have invested €18 million a privately-funded sorting plant at Hal-Far to process collected containers, sort them according to material type and then exported for recycling. “There is no government contribution to the BCRS investment,” the company told MaltaToday. “The entire €18 million investment to build the BCRS infrastructure was raised privately, and the company has not benefited from any government or EU funding.”

One of the chief motivations behind the privatised scheme is that Malta falls way behind European recycling targets – only 20% of plastic waste is getting recycled. BCRS hopes this rate can grow to 90% by 2026, in a market that puts 230 million single-use plastic and aluminium containers every year – mainly waters, beers and ciders, and alcopops. Juice and milk cartons are excluded, as are wine and beer in glass containers. While working as a private not-for-profit operator, the beverage container refund scheme is mandated by government laws under EU circular economy rules.

But the complaints of those used to the local collection services contracted out to the GreenMT and GreenPak companies, have been many in the opening weeks of the scheme. It is the reactions hailing from common misgivings that seem to be gathering steam on social media about this new stream of recycling, with photos of discarded plastic not accepted by the reverse-vending machines (RVMs) discarded by the wayside.

The Nationalist MP Justin Schembri says the BCRS has turned consumers “into beggars for what is theirs.”

“So, there’s a tax of 10c on every purchased bottle, and for you to claim back that 10c, you must leave your home to stand in a queue for a coupon that is not transferable in other shops other than the one from where you recycled your bottles.

“Those who have been recycling for years, will continue to do so, only to incur this extra 10c tax. I understand the importance of recycling... but this is simply daylight robbery for those who have been recycling. Why not incentivise those that do not recycle with a coupon in the first place? Arm-twisting me this way is shameful.”

It is a chief complaint among those who appreciate the collection services contracted out by local councils for plastic collection, where recyclable waste can be left conveniently on every doorstep for collection.

For those who can collect their containers at home, keep them intact, and take them en masse to a reverse-vending machine (RVM) – if not in town then in some peripheral supermarket – the BCRS reality has obliterated this convenience. The upside is the challenge to collect well over 200 million containers – at 10c now valued at €20 million in levies – by 2026.

Catering establishments

Other consumers have had eye-opening experiences: one Facebook user posted a Gozitan restaurant receipt in which he was levied a 10c fee for each beer bottle consumed. “I spoke to the cashier, who simply fobbed me off by telling me to ‘speak to the authorities’. Did the restaurant not pay its own 10c on each bottle it purchased, which it will take back if it recycles it? Why did I have to pay 80c on eight bottles?” The incident suggests that food and beverage outlets which sell hundreds of beverages on a daily basis, might be less inclined to recycle their masses of bottles and instead will happily pass on the 10c levy to their patrons.

But this is part of the BCRS rules, which make it legally mandatory for beverage retailers and catering establishments to register with the scheme, at a price of €25 to €100 annually according to establishment size. Catering establishments selling the drinks ‘take-away’ will levy the 10c on consumers, with a separate line item appearing in their receipts. But that 10c cannot be charged for on-site consumption, since the bottles will be retained by the catering establishment for later recycling.

Small importers

Small beverage importers who spoke to MaltaToday, also obliged to sign up to the BCRS, are annoyed at the dominance of the major beverage companies in the scheme.

Under the BCRS obligations, they have to report commercial data on their sales, through product placement reporting. They are legally obliged to report to BCRS the quantities of each registered beverage container placed on the market the preceding month, which instantly triggers the payment of the €0.10c deposit and administration fees chargeable for the quantities of each registered beverage container placed on the market the preceding month.

One importer privy to the discussions with the Chamber of SMEs on the BCRS scheme said he was concerned that BCRS would have access to beverage importation data from bespoke importers “down to the flavour variants of each beverage... and I don’t trust that this information will be truly kept confidential.”

Additionally, point-of-sale requirements to include the 10c levy as a non-VAT expense to an otherwise VAT-able sale, could cost retailers and importers at least €1,000 for the necessary updates, according to independent retailers.

BCRS says the security and privacy of data is a sensitive issue for everyone, small and large. “That is why BCRS takes this matter extremely seriously and implements a series of measures to protect its data,” a spokesperson said, saying its investment includes the latest technology in terms of data protection and cyber security, “supplemented by company policies and Chinese walls ensuring that access to sensitive data is highly restricted within the company – board of directors do not have access to any part of the data management system – with systems being programmed to output and report data in aggregate form only, without any detail of products or brands or other sensitive information.”

BCRS also said its management team has confidentiality clauses in their contracts, subject to strict financial penalties.

The retailers

Another small grocer retailer, also on Facebook, complained about having to pay €29.50 to register with the BCRS scheme, so that their cash register also logs bottle sales while placing the onus of collecting empty bottles in their shop until they take them personally to a reverse-vending machine.

“And if I do not register... I cannot sell these products!” the retailer said. “Is this for real? No way are we collecting the empty bottles, we’re a small shop – neither will I stock these products nor will I collect anybody’s bottles. This system stinks.”

One woman, a consumer, complained on Facebook about the price of a Kristal pack of six bottles of water now costing €3.16 instead of €2.40. “I called up General Soft Drinks to ask about this,” she said of the Coca-Cola bottlers who are chief principals in the BCRS scheme.

“I have to recycle the bottles at the reverse-vending machine like an idiot to get my 60c back, apart from a 16c increase in the price of water. Why do I have to do that when I have been recycling all my plastics? Why don’t they collect the plastics? Our family goes through five packets of six-pack water in around 10 days – I need the space to keep all these plastic bottles that were once simply squashed and placed in a recycling bag... and then drive to a supermarket to recycle them!”

Indeed retailers with no RVM on site have no choice but to adopt a manual collection system: collect and store the containers in their original shape to deposit them at the nearest Public Recycling Hub, where BCRS will pay “via a business transaction instead of a voucher”.

But retailers are paid a handling fee of 1c per container when either hosting a RVM in their store or collecting single-use containers manually, using bags and tags provided for free by BCRS. BCRS also collects the containers from retailers free of charge using dedicated vehicles, which containers are delivered to the Hal Far plant.