ASIPLA (the Trade Association of Plastic Industry) conducted successful seminar about REP

After the enactment of the Producer's Extended Responsibility Law (REP), key definitions follow. Chile is at the threshold of the drafting of the regulations and supreme decrees that will set the goals for the six high-priority products that the Chilean law will have on impact on: lubricating oils, electric and electronic equipment, car batteries, containers and packages, tires and batteries. In this seminar, ASIPLA assembled all participants of this process to analyze the present, future, and challenges of this law.

Santiago, October 2016. The recycling industry met on August 30, at the first important milestone after the Producer's Extended Responsibility and Recycling Promotion Act (better known as REP) was enacted. The seminar “The next goal of REP, all about the regulations”, organized by the Trade Association of Plastic Industry (ASIPLA), assembled authorities, experts and businessmen, who addressed the challenges to establish the regulations and supreme decrees that will, among other things define the waste collection and recycling goals.

On the other hand, the Minister of the Environment Pablo Badenier reaffirmed the commitment to gradually implementing the regulatory framework step by step. “The obligations that the REP will establish will be progressively required, taking geographic and technological factors into account, as well as the quantity of waste and its social and economic impact, among other variables. Moreover, the regulations will not be designed to be imposed unilaterally, but will be a shared task, exactly as we did it when this law was drafted,” specified the minister.

What is coming for the law
Minister Badenier provided a preview of a large part of the regulatory framework implementation schedule. He explained that two approaches are being taken, the first one being a series of studies that seek to compile information to establish the criteria to be considered for the application of the regulatory framework. The studies also consider the development of the REP implementation integrated into the One-Stop Processing Counter of the Emission Recording and Pollutant Transfer system. These studies will be supported by working groups made up of players of the industry itself. The second line of work is the drafting of the regulations that will create the law. The minister mentioned the four regulations that the portfolio is working on: the Procedural, which will establish the procedure to issue the decrees that will stipulate the goals and other obligations for the high-priority products; the Recycling Fund that will finance initiatives to support the REP; the Waste Cross-Border Movement, and the Simplified Procedure for the sanitary authorization of waste reception and storage installations, critical for complying with the inclusion requirements of the basic recyclers. The minister added that although the deadline for drafting the regulations is May 2017, some of them will be ready during the second half of that year.

Advances of the private sector 
The seminar was also an opportunity for getting to know the experience that various Chilean companies dedicated precisely to waste management have had with the sectors that the law will regulate. “Today we could gladly verify the details of the recycling initiatives that many companies are carrying out in Chile, that have been developing before the law was enacted as a result of the growing customer concern about waste generation,” pointed out Santiago Muzzo, ASIPLA President, after listening to the presentations of the managers and representatives of Sodimac Chile, DercoParts, Entel, Bridgestone Chile, and Enex.

Important international experts also attended the seminar: from Germany, Jan Bauer, General Manager of the consulting firm RIGK Chile SpA, a company specialized in collection systems; from Brazil, Patrícia Iglecias, former Secretary of the Environment of São Paulo; Paulo Pompilio, Director of Corporate Relations of the Pão de Açúcar Group. The Seminar offered a debate organized by Patricio Leyton, the attorney partner of FerradaNehme; Gonzalo Muñoz, the CEO of TriCiclos; David Bortnick, Head of the Legislative Department of the Legal Division of the Ministry of the Environment; and Paulo Pompilio of the Pão de Açúcar Group.

More information:
RIGK GmbH; Jan Bauer
Phone: +49 611 308600-16, Fax: -30
bauer@rigk.de; RIGK Chile SPA