Questions

No, but you may have to submit a prevention plan. The law provides for three obligations: the reporting obligation, the take-back obligation and submission of a prevention plan. If you are a member of Valipac and/or Fost Plus, through them you are in compliance with your reporting and take-back obligations.

If your company also has to submit a prevention plan, this should be sent directly to the IRPC. Check with your trade association first, however, as some associations draw up a sectoral prevention plan for their members.

No, the Cooperation Agreement stipulates that the accredited compliance organisations must be non-profit associations. They therefore have no profit margin.

This reasoning is not entirely correct.

First of all, you have to differentiate between packaging arising from the products you place on the market and packaging that physically remains in your company.

In other words, there is a difference between the packaging waste generated before your eyes, within your company, and the packaging waste that you do not see but that is generated by your company in households and business premises.

Packaging that you distribute on the market

You are the responsible company for this packaging, which has specific consequences in that you are subject to the reporting and take-back obligations and you may have to draw up a prevention plan.

Packaging that remains in your company

You are not necessarily responsible for this type of packaging.

No. Your customers should not confuse an acceptance obligation with the take-back obligation.

The take-back obligation is the obligation to demonstrate that certain recycling and recovery rates have been achieved. You comply with it if you are a member of Valipac and/or Fost Plus.

Fost Plus concludes contracts with every municipality and intermunicipality that collects household refuse. As a result, it has a clear picture of the total quantity of household packaging waste in Belgium, and hence also of the packaging waste that your wholesalers receive from you.

Valipac works according to the same principle with the container companies that are traditionally responsible for collecting and disposing of industrial and commercial waste. This works differently in practice, but the results are the same: Valipac is also able to report on industrial and commercial waste in Belgium.

Fost Plus and Valipac may aggregate the recycling and recovery rates for all of their members in their reports.

It is sometimes possible to rectify the situation.

The IRPC has made provision in the accreditations of both Fost Plus and Valipac for a responsible company to be able to join retroactively in certain cases.

Please note that this rule is not immutable, so you should not assume that it will be included in any future Fost Plus or Valipac accreditation.