The ministry submitted to the Ministry of Finance for consideration amendments to the law, which provides that state assets declared redundant but usable will not be destroyed, but will be reused by transferring them to special item-sharing stations. Re-use is the most effective way to reduce waste and its impact on the environment, the ministry said in a press release.
„We have set ourselves the goal of becoming a circular and climate-neutral economy by 2050. To achieve this goal, we should make more progress in reusing waste and recovering materials. According to the latest data, Lithuania’s recycling rate is almost three times lower than the EU average. Although the disposal of unwanted items is becoming more popular, the legal framework does not yet provide for the reuse of public goods. Our proposal is to give a second chance to things that should have ended up in landfills,“ says Aušrinė Armonaitė, Minister of the Economy and Innovation.
State assets that were previously declared redundant and not transferred or auctioned had to be written off and liquidated. Disposal is defined in the Waste Act as either landfill or destruction. However, there are usable assets among those declared redundant, and amendments to the law are being proposed to allow these assets to be transferred to sharing stations operated by Regional Waste Management Centres (RWMCs) for reuse.
„The current legal framework, which requires the destruction of usable and useful items, is not working. Thousands of items handed in by residents and private companies find new owners in the network of ’DĖK’ui’ (Thank You) stations, as well as in the networks of exchange stations in other regions. There is no reason to believe that public assets should be treated with less respect. Change is necessary from an environmental, social and economic point of view,“ says Tomas Vaitkevičius, Director of the Vilnius County Waste Management Centre.
Re-use is the most effective way of preventing waste, as it does not create waste by preserving an item and does not waste resources in the production of a new item. Recycling is less effective because only some of the materials are often recovered when waste is recycled. The least effective waste prevention solution is incineration for energy, as it destroys materials and landfilling is not recommended.
According to the Environment Protection Agency, a large part of waste in Lithuania, especially bulky waste, is still not managed in a circular way - only a small part is reused and recycled, and most of it is incinerated for energy or landfilled.
To achieve its circularity targets, the country will need to reduce the amount of waste going to landfill by several times by 2030 by diverting it to reuse or recycling. In addition, as the amount of waste increases, so do the costs of waste management. Therefore, the proposal to transfer recyclable assets to sharing stations not only reduces the amount of waste, but also saves money for both waste managers and the people involved in the sharing activities.
In Lithuania, there are 10 regional waste management centres run by municipalities. Each of them coordinates the exchange stations. There are 73 RATC exchange stations in Lithuania. Some of them even prepare items for reuse - repairing and cleaning them. Re-use and sharing stations are a common practice abroad.