January 2023 - December 2023

Partner:

Fund for Development Cooperation and Humanitarian with Lithuanian Environmental Agency

Environment Group

“Support for the establishment of a deposit system for glass and plastic beverage containers”- Fund for Development Cooperation and Humanitarian Aid:

Environment’s primary objective in this project was to provide the Government of Armenia with a comparative legal and technical analysis for the design and phased implementation of a Deposit Refund System (DRS), drawing on the practices from EU countries, particularly Lithuania, under donor cooperation frameworks

What we delivered: 

• Assessed environmental risks from unmanaged packaging waste and socio-economic impacts of DRS adoption (job creation, tariff impacts, consumer affordability, informal sector effects)

• Developed waste sector studies in particular conducted a comparative legal review of Armenia’s waste governance framework against EU Member states’ laws (Lithuania, Germany, Estonia, Finland) highlighting strengths, weaknesses and opportunities

• Prepared technical design and implementation guidelines for DRS lind with EU directives and international waste governance standards, including financial flows (deposit fees, unclaimed deposits, handling fees), reporting procedures and collection infrastructure (reverse vending machines and manual return points.

• Leveraged lessons from Lithuania's USAD (Deposit System Administrator) and adapted them to Armenia's legal and socio-economic context.