The Committee for Environment and Ecological Balance of the Chamber of Deputies debated and amended GEO no. 68/2016 for amending and completing the Framework Law on waste regime no. 211/2011, a press release said.
“The provisions of GEO no. 68/2016 aim at, on the one hand, the correct and complete transposition of Directive no. 98/2008 on waste and, on the other hand, encouraging the design of products that have a low environmental impact and generate a low amount of waste during production and subsequent use and ensure the recovery and disposal of products that have become waste, as well as supporting the production of the development and commercialization of multi-purpose, technically sustainable products that, once they become waste, can be properly harnessed and disposed of safely to the environment and to the health of the population,” said MEPs.
Building on such a desirability, the Environment Commission has introduced a requirement for local public authorities to ensure separate collection for at least four factions (paper, metal, plastic and glass) in order to stimulate separate collection of waste from the population and its application as an economic instrument of the “pay for what you throw away” principle, eliminating from the OUG’s text the phrase “where technically, economically and environmentally sound”.
The Commission extended the area of competent authorities for the detection of contraventions and the application of fines, so that they will be carried out both by the Environmental Guard representatives and by the persons empowered within the Forest Guards and the Ministry of Internal Affairs.
Remus Borza, Chairman of the Committee on the Environment and the Balance of the Environment, proposed an amendment, adopted unanimously, to increase the special minimum of six months to three years’ imprisonment for imports of used apparatus, plant and equipment, for non-observance of the obligatory measures regarding the collection, treatment, transportation, recovery of hazardous waste, as well as for the abandonment of the waste during the transit through the territory of Romania. For the acts provided by art. 63 of Law 211/2011, the maximum penalty was maintained at five years’ imprisonment.
