The Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB), the statutory organisation under the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEF&CC), has ordered the State Pollution Control Boards (SPCBs) and Pollution Control Committees (PCCs) to do physical verification of the registered Plastic Waste Processors (PWPs) before issuing operational certificates. In a direction issued recently to the SPCBs and PCCs, the CPCB said that the timely completion of the physical verification will complete the registration process of the companies enrolled on the Extended Producers’ Responsibility (EPR) portal.
According to the direction, the SPCBs and PCCs of all regions will require to submit the action taken report (ATR) by March 20, 2023, on the physical verifications conducted by them at the units under their jurisdiction till March 15, 2023. According to trade sources, SPCBs and PCCs have already started visiting plastic waste processing units, large collection centres and other facilities, engaged in the circular economy of the plastic recycling industry for compiling reports.
The notification further stated that over 1701 members have registered themselves on the CPCB’s EPR portal of which 862 plastic waste processors have been verified physically so far. The SPCBs and PCCs have approved the registration of 620 plastic waste processors, as per the CPCB portal. The EPR portal explains that 1242 brand owners, 1934 producers and 2871 importers with a total EPR handling target of 2.32 million tonnes per annum of plastic waste volume have already been registered.
This is worth mentioning here that the EPR guidelines allow only plastic waste processors registered under Plastic Waste Management Rule, will provide certificates for plastic waste processing, which will be considered for the fulfilment of Extended Producer Responsibility obligations by producers, importers and brand-owners. Non-registered processors, therefore, may be banned from handling plastic scrap therefrom.
CPCB has already made it mandatory for producers, importers and brand owners to provide details of recycling certificates only from registered recyclers along with the details of quantity sent for end-of-life disposal by June 30, 2024, while filing annual returns on the online portal. The details provided by producers, importers and brand-owners and registered plastic waste processors will be cross-checked by the online portal.
By June 30, 2024, however, producers, importers and brand owners (PIBSs) are required to obtain EPR certificates issued by plastic waste processors for the fulfilment of their EPR liability. The CPCB has guided all plastic waste processors to submit their financial report for the handling of the entire quantity of plastic waste by the 31st of March of every year. With this, all processors are required to declare the entire quality of plastic waste recycling and therefore revenue and profit earned by them.
“In view of this, timely completion of physical verification is essential to give adequate time to the PWPs to generate certificates and transfer the same to registered PIBOs enabling them to fulfil their EPR obligations. This is also required to ensure that the PWPs and PIBOs file the annual returns in the same manner as the primary processors, brand owners and recyclers do in the industry,” said the notification.
For more details on CPCB please refer to our earlier articles below:
https://www.polymerupdate.com/News/Details/1215190
https://www.polymerupdate.com/News/Details/1215118
DILIP KUMAR JHA
Editor
dilip.jha@polymerupdate.com
