The military has just received instructions from high command on how to collect used plastic bottles, the portal Niezależna.pl has learned. This level of absurdity and humiliation of the army has been brought about by the way Donald Tusk’s government introduced the deposit return system. The Armed Forces were not granted an exemption from these absurd regulations.
The Act of 13 July 2023 introduced a deposit return system in Poland for selected beverage packaging. It was initially a voluntary system without penalties. The current government and Climate Minister Paulina Hennig-Kloska changed that. The new rules have caused hardship not only for ordinary citizens, who must now trouble themselves with returning undamaged plastic bottles and cans to the few available reverse vending machines, sometimes accepted, sometimes rejected. Tusk’s team’s actions have also affected the military.
The military collects bottles. It trembles over money
Instead of focusing on defence and military equipment inventories, the Polish Armed Forces are now counting and stockpiling used bottles. The Inspectorate for Support of the Armed Forces has issued special guidelines on compliance with the new deposit return system rules, which have been sent to all units. They will be implemented by the Military Economic Units (WOGs). As we have established, in several units, the person responsible for making the inventory of the bottles is the company commander, an experienced professional non-commissioned officer in charge of all administrative, economic, technical, and logistical matters in the subunit.
Niezależna.pl has also obtained calculations from the Inspectorate for Support of the Armed Forces (IWSZ), which estimates that if the army did not collect and return the bottles, it would lose approximately PLN 5 million per year. Scandalously, when the law was being amended, the Armed Forces lobbied for an exemption from the deposit return system, to no avail. The Inspectorate for Support has once again recently submitted a proposed amendment that would change this absurd situation. For now, operating under “crisis conditions,” it has issued the instruction we are reporting on.
Kosiniak-Kamysz’s Eco-Army
The portal contacted the Inspectorate for Support, requesting clarification. It presented an optimistic vision of an “ecological” military.
“In the case of large public institutions, these amounts can run into several million PLN per year, so the collection of packaging has a measurable financial effect, not merely a symbolic one. Most importantly, soldiers and civilian employees performing their official duties will not be required to collect deposit-return packaging individually. Collection points are being organised in units, allowing the packaging to be handed over in an orderly manner and in accordance with the regulations, without interfering with the performance of training and service tasks,”
stated Lt. Col. Piotr Płuciennik, spokesman for the Communications Division of the Inspectorate for Support of the Armed Forces, in response to Niezależna.pl’s questions.
He assured that the system does not impose “any additional duties during exercises, training, or other service activities” on personnel serving or working in military units.
“The initiative aims not only to comply with applicable regulations but also to reduce the negative impact on the environment by increasing the level of recycling and reuse of materials. This is a natural direction for the development of modern armed forces, which, while carrying out their tasks, also take into account ecological aspects and the principles of sustainable operation. The deposit return system gives beverage packaging a specific financial value that can be recovered upon return. In large institutions and military units, large quantities of such packaging are generated every day, and their collection can translate into real funds. Therefore, the actions of collecting and returning deposit-bearing packaging are a manifestation of prudent management of available solutions. In practice, it is about not losing resources that can be recovered under the current system,”
the spokesman claims.
The military has quite a few “games” with bottles. For example, during field exercises, soldiers receive three litres of beverage, that is, two large bottles of water.
Will Minister Hennig-Kloska be held accountable for dragging the military into this kind of activity – collecting bottles and recovering money from their return? Why did the Ministry of National Defence fail to effectively help the Armed Forces escape these senseless solutions?
