On November 27, a meeting of the Guild of Producers of Consumer Goods was held in the St. Petersburg Chamber of Commerce and Industry, chaired by Alexander Sheremetyev, Director of Neva Metal Dinnerware JSC. The main issues that were discussed at the event were the rules for payment of the environmental fee and the proposal of the Ministry of Natural Resources of the Russian Federation for increasing the amount of this payment.
Oksana Avdienko, Deputy Head of the Department of the Federal Service for Supervision of Natural Resource Usage in the North-West Region, confirmed the statement of the Ministry of Natural Resources and Ecology of Russia on raising the standards for utilisation up to 100% in several years. The expert also spoke about the procedure for preparing documents and submitting reports on environmental charges to the agency. In particular, she spoke of the introduction of check lists for supervisory activities, which will be effective from July 2018 in all areas of environmental supervision, including licensing.
Nikita Bondarenko, Head of the Environmental Supervision sector on the industrial territory of the Committee for Natural Resource Management of the Administration of St. Petersburg, spoke of the specifics of the regional supervision of the city companies.
Nikolai Kolychev, Chairman of the Subcommittee on Waste and Resource Saving of the Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs of St. Petersburg, and Alexey Kulikov, Commercial Director of Etcom, spoke of possible ways of developing an industrial waste recycling system.
All participants in the meeting agreed that this topic is one of the most pressing in this sector. The increase in the number of non-tax payments and their value in the conditions of economic stagnation adversely affect the financial situation of the companies. The main problem is that legislative changes often do not give time for the companies to retrofit the operations because this is not a matter of months or even years. Introduction of additional payments and requirements for the disposal of industrial wastes should certainly be presented as a long-term plan that will enable industrial companies to plan their activities and use it as a basis. This was also mentioned by Alexander Sheremetiev, the head of the Neva Metal Dinnerware JSC, the Chairman of the Guild of Producers of Consumer Goods.
Following the meeting, a resolution was adopted on developing a long-term plan for establishing a waste management system. The document will be sent to the Ministry of Natural Resources and Ecology of the Russian Federation.
In total, more than 35 leading companies of St. Petersburg and the Leningrad Region took part in the Guild's meeting. JSC Russian Samotsvety, JSC Imperial Plant, EDMINS, and Lady Sharm were there, to name a few.