The Ministry of Environmental Protection and Natural Resources has drafted a bill "On Environmental Tax for Waste Disposal and Mining Waste Disposal," which provides for a 10-fold increase in the tax rate for mixed household waste disposal.
The document aims to adjust the environmental tax rates and regulations for the disposal of mining waste, the Ministry of Environment reports.
The draft law will amend the Tax Code of Ukraine to take into account the requirements and terminology of Law 2320-IX "On Waste Management". It also aims to stimulate compliance with the waste management hierarchy and provide funding for waste management activities, in particular through an eco-tax on various types of waste.
The main provisions of the draft law:
- demarcation of the definition of waste disposal into "landfill" and "disposal" for waste from the mining industry and the introduction of the terms: "waste from the mining industry", "uncontaminated soil", "disposal of mining waste";
- exemption of the company from paying the eco-tax for waste disposal, which collects waste for no more than one year from the moment of its formation and transfers it for further processing;
- changes to the object and tax base, in particular not to be taxed waste from destructions that are in temporary storage places, as well as volumes of uncontaminated soil, i.e. removed soil cover during mining activities;
- new amount of tax rates;
- a gradual increase in the environmental tax rate after the abolition or termination of martial law for seven years (from 40% to 100%, with an annual increase of 10%).
Eco tax rate for disposal will depend on the class and type of waste. Thus, the fee for the disposal of 1 ton of hazardous waste from the extractive industry will reach UAH 19.29, waste from the extractive industry that is not hazardous will be UAH 6.43, waste that is not hazardous will be UAH 100, and hazardous waste will be UAH 1,500.
The draft law also provides that for the disposal of mixed household waste, an increasing factor of 10 from the eco-tax rate is applied. And for the placement of ore and non-ore waste from the mining industry, the reduction factor is 0.2.
For the disposal of some hazardous waste, a reduction factor of 0.3 will also be applied for:
- partially stabilized hazardous waste;
- solidified hazardous waste;
- partially stabilized mercury;
- vitrified waste;
- compost that does not meet technical requirements;
- residues from anaerobic treatment of household and similar waste, as well as such animal and plant waste.
The current tax rate for the disposal of equipment and devices containing mercury, elements with ionizing radiation reaches 952.02 hryvnias per unit, and for fluorescent lamps – 16.57 hryvnias per unit. And the eco-tax rate for waste placement depends on the hazard class for:
- extremely dangerous – UAH 1,546.22 per 1 ton;
- highly dangerous – UAH 56.32 per ton;
- moderately dangerous – UAH 14.12 per ton;
- low-hazardous – UAH 5.5 per ton (low-hazardous non-toxic mining waste – UAH 0.54 per ton).
Comments and proposals regarding the draft law can be sent until February 3 to the following address: st. Metropolitan Vasyl Lypkivskyi, 35; Kyiv, 03035, tel. (044) 206-31-68 or e-mail info@mepr.gov.ua.
Earlier, EcoPolitic wrote, that Minister of Environmental Protection and Natural Resources Ruslan Strilets stated that landfilling untreated waste from general containers should be expensive, in particular due to increasing eco-tax rates.
As EcoPolitic previously reported, the Ministry of Environment presented a Road map of waste management reform, which will provide a comprehensive solution to the problem.
