Nor will its exemption system start working on Wednesday.

In very basic terms, the eco-tax (as it will be called for brevity’s sake) will be charged on products when they enter Malta or, in the case of objects manufactured in Malta, when they are put on sale. Therefore companies will start paying the eco-tax when they import products. If they intend to pass on the cost to the consumers, they will have to charge it when these products reach the shops.

However, those who intend to set up a system through which used products are collected and recycled, thus avoiding their joining the waste stream, will have to wait until their recyclable scheme is deemed to be acceptable by the technical commission charged with the implementation of the eco-tax.

This technical commission is still being set up, and the final agreement on its terms of reference was only reached with the social partners on Friday afternoon.

It will need to draw up its own guidelines to ensure that a recyclable system is acceptable before it can start exempting products from the eco-tax.

WasteServ Malta explained the principle behind eco-tax: “The proposed eco-contribution is a charge imposed on products to take account for when they become waste at the end of their use. The aim of this contribution is to encourage the producer or the importer to assume responsibility for when the product, which s/he puts on the market, becomes waste. There are different ways of extending this responsibility. One way is to have the producer/importer pay for the cost of when the product finds its way into the general waste stream. Alternatively, the producer/importer may arrange a recovery, recycling and treatment system for that product. In this case the product becomes exempt from paying the contribution.”

The main products on which the eco-tax will be charged include:

• Beverage containers made of plastic, glass or metal (roughly 1c each going up to 5c for wines, liqueurs and similar beverages)

• Toiletries and washing preparations (5c each)

• Tyres (Lm2 each whether new or re-threaded)

• Batteries and accumulators (2c5 for primary cells and batteries and 70c for accumulators)

• Petroleum oils (10c per litre)

• Oil filters (5c each)

• White goods, such as fridges and cookers (Lm12 for air-conditioners, Lm10 for fridges and Lm30 for freezer chests or cabinets; Lm3 per water heater)

• Monitors and TV equipment (Lm5 for television receivers, video-recorders and televisions under 52cm diameter; Lm15 for colour TV receivers over 52cm diameter, Lm5 for computer monitors)

• Telecommunications equipment (Lm2.50 per mobile phone, video-phone, cordless handset etc)

• Appliances used for washing and cooking (Lm10 per dish-washer, Lm10 per washing machine, microwave oven or other ovens, grills or cooking plates)

It is clear that the government has tried to provide incentives to importers and producers to reduce the waste stream by collecting the waste they generate to get the market to do the main work, on the theory that ultimately market forces will make producers or importers choose recycling and thus avoid paying the tax.

However, the Maltese market is very small and easily manipulated, so the ultimate challenge will be to see whether this will actually work or whether importers and producers just put up the prices and let the consumer pay it and get used to it. After all, past experience has shown that prices in Malta are inelastic whenever it was claimed they would come down, although foreign wine prices post 1 May have declined in supermarkets but not in restaurants.

Government is still hopeful this system will work and it points at the white goods sector in particular, where real competition exists.

There will not be any price police going round the shops come Wednesday, but government says it will be monitoring to ensure that no unjustified price rises are put in place. There will be spot-checks in shops, government sources warned.

Meanwhile, retailers and wholesalers should not be bothered by this tax, as they will have nothing to do with it. It will be paid directly by importers and by producers.

Government also pointed out that it does not see this eco-tax as a revenue-earning method by any other name, but rather as the first attempt to introduce a definite change of mentality in the way the peopleof this country treat waste.

The system on which the eco-tax works aims to make it worthwhile for the private sector to get into waste recycling in a big way. Ideally, the way forward will not be with each importer creating his own recyclable system but rather through a waste entrepreneur who comes to an agreement with many importers in the same sector and sets up a system for them all.

Only if this happens will one know that the eco-tax system has worked.