By 2035, Belarusian manufacturers should use 30 to 50 percent of environmentally friendly packaging. This is provided for by the program on the transition to environmentally friendly packaging, developed by the Government of Belarus, said Deputy Chairman of the Belgospischeprom Concern (the Belarusian state food industry concern incorporating 57 food producers) Iya Malkin during a panel discussion as part of World Entrepreneurship Week on November 19.
She said that the new program consists of two parts: theoretical, including terms, and practical, a plan for implementing this process.
“The first block of practical implementation contains tasks for enterprises engaged in the production of glass and paper packaging, so that they are ready to meet the demand of production enterprises for various types of environmentally friendly packaging,” Malkina said. “The second block is food manufacturers who use plastic packaging in their production: we offer them to carry out a gradual modernization of their production to ensure that the indicators laid down in the program are met. The third block is the work of the Ministry of Economy, the Ministry of Natural Resources, the Ministry of Housing and Agriculture to create capacities that allowed either to process plastic packaging. The fourth block is work with society: we must equally understand the goal that confronts us.”
The chairman of the Belgospischeprom concern said that the prepared draft document defines plans for the transition to environmentally friendly packaging.
“I emphasize that they are not very ambitious,” Malkina said. “We do not set 100 percent as the goal of switching to environmentally friendly packaging. We conducted an analysis of the capabilities of our industries, their economic development, the capabilities of our market, the capabilities of packaging manufacturers and its processors. The benchmark is the arithmetic mean value of 30 to 50 percent for the use of environmentally friendly packaging by 2035.”
She noted that in determining such indicators, the authors of the document proceeded, inter alia, from the experience of international consultants.
“Not all European countries can boast of achievements in this area,” Malkina said. “Another question is that we should look no worse. In the proposed document, we found a balance that will allow us to be ready for the decisions that the state proposes to take in the next 10 years.”