Under the Law (L.32(1)/2002) obligate organizations are:

  1. Companies which produce and package, or appoint third parties for this purpose, of goods (with neutral packaging or packaging bearing their label) for the purpose of trading them in Cyprus.
  2. Companies which import packaged goods for the purpose of trading them in Cyprus.
  3. Companies which import packaged goods for their own use (raw material, engine spare parts and equipment, etc).
  4. Companies which as transporters (supermarkets, commercial stores) package or appoint third parties to package on their behalf goods under their own private label for the purpose of trading them in Cyprus.
  5. Companies which use facilitation packaging, either without a label or under their private label.
    This kind of packaging is used at the point where the service is offered to consumers or users, in combination with the supply of goods or services. In this category are for example, wrapping paper, paper and other bread bags, pizza boxes, supermarket and other commercial stores’ carrier bags, carrier bags handed out at exhibitions and other shows, etc.
  6. Companies which hand out free packaged goods as part of a promotion or as samples.

Any companies that come under one of the above categories and place in the market packaging (primary, secondary or tertiary packaging) every year are obligated under the Law to recover and recycle specified amounts of the packaging which they place in the market.

It is clarified here that the obligation in Cyprus concerns only products placed in the Cyprus market (not exports or re-exports).

In any case, obligate is an organization which first places the products in the market (first which produces, or first which imports and releases in Cyprus).

A company which opts to come into a contract with a Collective System for Packaging Waste should be aware that the Collective System:

  • Represents many obligate organizations
  • Should be a non-profit organization under the Law
  • Submits a detailed business plan to the competent authorities and is licensed for a six year period
  • Undertakes the collective obligation on the total of the packaging which its members place in the market (the packaging no longer has an identity).
  • Develops collective and large-scale activities capable of achieving the targets of recovery and recycling which it undertakes on behalf of its members.
  • articipation in a Collective Management System requires a fee payable to the System by all its company members.
  • When the member pays its fee to the Collective System it is RELIEVED of any responsibility for the management of packaging and the responsibility is transferred to the Collective System.

A Company which opts to develop an Individual Packaging Management System should:

  1. Demonstrate to the state that it implements a system of guarantees
  2. Submit to the competent authority data concerning the description of the system it implements as concerns targets and methods, the technical and financial infrastructure it has in place for the implementation of the system and details of the manner of operation in order to establish its capability to comply with the laws.
  3. Pays the approved fee the level of which corresponds with the administrative cost of considering the application.
  4. Proves that recyclable products which are collected end up for recycling in accordance with the requirements of the law.
  5. Specifically, you should draft a detailed list of the packaging for which you are obligated. Then you should contact all your clients to establish what they do with the packaging as soon as they use your products. You should also collect and recover all your waste which you unpack by yourselves or through your associates and place them for recycling with licensed package waste managers.
  6. Then you should compare these two streams of information as described above in order to ensure that you achieve the percentages set by the law. The amounts for recovery are now at 60% and for recycling at 55% of the total of packaging material that each business places in the market. Additionally, you must ensure that the percentages mentioned in the legislation of each packaging material which you place in the market is recycled.
  7. You must repeat this exercise every year.

Meeting these obligations may prove very time-consuming and with particularly high costs, especially if you carry them out by yourselves.

The Law imposes specific obligations to the obligate businesses for the packaging they place in the market, in the percentages shown below:

Achieve maximum recycling of 70% of packaging waste.

In addition, based on the approval, the recovery and recycling targets for each material are as follows:

  • 50% by weight, for plastics
  • 25% by weight, for wood
  • 70% by weight, for ferrous metals
  • 50% by weight, for aluminum
  • 70% by weight, for glass
  • 75% by weight for paper and cardboard

This means that every responsible company has an obligation to deal with the management of certain quantities of each type of packaging that it places on the market and to prove that it does so with correct and verified methods every year.

More specifically:

Your obligations as a packing obligate to the State are the following:

  1. The packaging authorities must provide the government with figures on the volume of packaging they place on the Cypriot market and demonstrate how they have received proof that their packaging has been recovered and recycled.
  2. Once a year, they must submit this information to the Ministry of Agriculture, Rural Development and Environment and especially to the Environment Department.

The companies–members of Green Dot Cyprus have the right to display the Green Dot logo on the packaging of products they sell.

The Green Dot logo appearing on a packaging is an indication that the company which imports or packages the product in Cyprus is a member of a Collective System such as Green Dot Cyprus and financially contributes for the recycling of the packaging of the product. This logo does not declare whether a packaging can by recycled or not.

The fact that you recycle your commercial packaging is independent of whether you are obliged under legislation to participate in a collective system such as Green Dot Cyprus. These are two completely different matters and should not be confused.

I recycle my packaging means I respect the environment, health and my clients and I keep my premises clean.

I am a member of Green Dot Cyprus means that I transfer my responsibility under the law for the recovery and recycling of my packaging to Green Dot Cyprus and that from now on, it is Green Dot Cyprus responsibility to recover and recycle the packaging in its entirety in order to achieve the national targets.

The fact that your company is in an area where there is no recycling is independent from the fact that you are obliged under the law to participate in a collective system such as Green Dot Cyprus. They are two completely different matters and should not be confused.

I am a member of Green Dot Cyprus means that I transfer my responsibility under the law for the recovery and recycling of my packaging to Green Dot Cyprus and it is Green Dot Cyprus which from now on is responsible for the recovery and recycling of the packaging and the achievement of targets required by the law.

Recycling my packaging means that I respect the environment, health and my clients and I keep my premises clean. If in your area no recycling is carried out then you may contact the Municipality or Community councils and ask to be informed if there are any other solutions to the management of your waste.

Green Dot Cyprus as a Collective System is responsible for the recovery and recycling of a percentage of packaging (as determined by the Law) which its members place in the market. The Organization targets packaging whose management will have the lesser possible cost. For this reason it chooses which packaging it will collect and in what way.

If Green Dot Cyprus were to collect the packaging of all its company-members it would dramatically increase the overall cost of the System as it would have to be active in all the areas of Cyprus even in the most remote village as the company-member might be located at such village and at the same time to collect for management all packaging without exception.

Increase however of the management costs of Green Dot Cyprus would lead to increase in the fees that its members pay and therefore an increase of the price of the products we buy as consumers.

From 2010 and every year since, Green Dot Cyprus achieves the targets set by legislation. You can see the results of recycling and the Organization’s course up to now by clicking on Annual Reports.

Green Dot Cyprus’ fees are about in the average in comparison with other countries and corresponding collective systems.

There are penalties and they are described in Άρθρο 26 του Nόμου N.32(I)/2002

The income of the Organization both from its company-members and from the other sources of revenue of the Organization is used for the operation of the Organization with the main aim being the achievement of the targets set by legislation with the lesser possible cost.

Green Dot Cyprus, as a non-profit Organization, uses any possible surplus as the following year’s revenue.

Every obligate company can cooperate with Green Dot Cyprus either as a shareholder or as a member. Green Dot Cyprus as a non-profit Organization does not give dividends to shareholders.

The only difference between shareholders and members is the ability to elect and be elected in the Organization’s Board of Directors which only the shareholders have.

Yes, there are in the other countries of Europe also Collective Systems which function in a similar way as Green Dot Cyprus. This occurs because European Directive 94/62 for packaging and packaging waste applies to all the EU member-states.

This is the reason also for the presence of the Green Dot Trademark on product packaging that is transported in other countries also. Only companies who participate in these Collective Systems have the exclusive right to use the Trademark.