The Malta Environment and Planning Authority (MEPA) said it is in the process of setting up a complement of Compliance Inspectors as it steps up its enforcement efforts to ensure that every producer placing packaging material on the Maltese market is observing the regulations that manage packaging waste.

The Legal Notice (277 of 2006) which came into force in 2007 and regulates the Management of Packaging waste, obliges every producer placing packaging material on the Maltese market to register themselves with the Authority and keep an adequate audit trail of their operations in order to justify the amounts that were placed on the market, as well as the amounts that are being recovered or recycled.

Each registered producer, who does not have the mechanism of recovering or recycling their packaging waste, may opt to join an authorized packaging waste recovery scheme. The authorized operators, on behalf of their members, are assigned the responsibility of achieving the relevant waste recovery targets for these packaging waste producers. In this case, operators of a packaging waste recovery scheme have the obligations to keep an audit trail, and engage an independent auditor to examine and assess the operations of the same scheme.

In the coming days MEPA said it will be carrying out spot checks in various retail outlets around Malta and Gozo and will be sending out legal letters to those producers who have failed to renew their registration in previous years (i.e. for base years 2007 and 2008) with a deadline until the end of the year.

The Authority concluded by saying it will also be requesting, within a maximum of 2 months, an audit trail from a number of producers who are not members of any packaging waste recovery scheme. On their part, Waste Management facilities will be requested to provide a full audit trail as part of their reporting obligations. These would in turn be required to be audited by means of an independent auditor engaged by the same facility, which audit would be carried out in line with relevant terms of reference, which would also be prepared for such cases.

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