BDO commercials

The biggest mistake entrepreneurs make is to treat plastic bags as a minor selling point rather than as a source of specific environmental obligations. In practice, the very act of offering customers plastic shopping bags covered by the recycling fee brings the shop or wholesaler into the BDO area. Official sources from Biznes.gov.pl explicitly point out that such a trader must obtain an entry in the BDO register, keep records of the number of bags purchased and issued and submit an annual report to the system. This means that the subject of commercial bags does not end with the addition of 20 pennies at the checkout. For the shop, it is a full-fledged environmental obligation that combines registering, recording, accounting and reporting.

When do commercials trigger a BDO entry obligation?

The obligation arises when a shop or wholesaler offers customers plastic shopping bags covered by the recycling fee. Business.gov.co.uk makes this clear: retail and wholesale units that provide such bags must apply for entry in the BDO register. In practice, this means that even a small neighbourhood shop can fall into the BDO not through waste, but precisely through advertising bags. More often than not, entrepreneurs confuse this obligation with general waste management and assume that since they do not keep waste records, BDO does not apply to them. However, with commercials, the entry is due to product obligations and the recycling fee, not the generation of waste itself.

Which commercials are subject to the recycling levy?

This is the most important point from a shop practice perspective. The recycling charge covers plastic shopping bags, with an exception for very light bags of less than 15 micrometres, if they are required for hygiene reasons or if they are the primary packaging for food sold in bulk and help to reduce food waste. The rate of the charge shall be PLN 0.20 per unit. In practice, this means that a shop must not only know which bags it is issuing to customers, but also correctly distinguish between regular carrier bags and so-called rip-offs, which can benefit from the exemption. This is where most errors occur: traders consider any thin bag as exempt, while the exception is narrower and only applies to specific situations.

How are the records, deposit and report in BDO?

Simply collecting a fee from a customer does not close the obligation. Business.gov.co.uk points out that the trader must keep records of the number of bags purchased and issued covered by the recycling fee. It then passes on the collected fee to the provincial marshal and shows the data in an annual report submitted to the BDO system. This means that the shop should collect data on the turnover of commercials throughout the year, rather than trying to recreate them at the last minute. In practice, it is the lack of up-to-date records that is the most common problem: the trader remembers to charge the customer 20 cents, but forgets that without the source data, he cannot correctly prepare the accounts and reports.

Frequently asked questions

If you want to check whether your shop's adverts are giving rise to obligations at BDO and whether the recycling charge is being accounted for correctly, Ekopro Group provides assistance. On a day-to-day basis, we support entrepreneurs in topics related to BDO, recycling levy, claims, records, reporting and ongoing handling of environmental obligations. Feel free to contact us We will help you to establish responsibilities and sort out the adverts in your business.