Legal Basis

The system established by Latvijas Zalais punkts is based on the Packaging Law that came into force on 1st of July, 2002. This law transposed EC Packaging Directive 94/62/EC into Latvian legislation.

Obliged persons are:

• companies that first place the goods in packaging on the market, irrespective of whether they are importers or producers of goods in packaging, as well as producers or importers of Packaging;
• service providers and sellers who adds packaging to the goods;
• companies that sales in retail or uses in public catering disposable tableware and accessories.

The take-back and recovery obligation for packers (producers of goods, service providers or sellers who pack the goods, as well as importers who import packaged goods or products) starts as soon as the amount of packaging waste generated by the packer within the time period of one year reaches 300kg.A packer may perform management of packaging waste himself or enter into a contract with a packaging management undertaking (company) such as is Latvijas Zalais punkts.

Accordingly to the Natural Resources Tax (NRT) Law a packer has two possibilities to choose between:

• to pay natural resources tax with a very high rates;

                     or

• to manage packaging waste and receive 100% exemption from NRT.

Cooperation with LZP provides the possibility for its licensees to receive an 100% exemption form NRT for packaging and tableware. The possibility to receive the tax exemption may also be offered to the potential foreign licensees who has a tax payer registration number in Latvia.