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Germany's 'Green Dot' Waste Management System
Introduction
In May 2007, the Court of First Instance3 at Brussels rejected the appeal made by Duales System Deutschland GmbH (DSD), the owner of the Green Dot trademark and Germany's largest waste management company, against the Court's April 2001 and September 2001 rulings that had found DSD guilty of abusing its monopoly position in the German waste management industry. The company was found to have charged very high fees from its customers and to have blocked competing firms from using waste collection facilities. DSD said it would “do without further legal steps in this process” and meet officials from the European Commission4 (EC) to settle the issue of the trademark fee (for its Green Dot symbol) and to verify whether the Commission would take any further legal steps. |
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DSD was set up as a not-for-profit organization in 1990 in anticipation of Germany's Packaging Ordinance. The ordinance was passed in 1991 to deal with the landfill crisis that Germany faced.It placed the responsibility of collecting, separating, and reusing/recycling packaging waste on the producers/retailers. The producers, recognizing that it would be almost impossible for them to collect all the packaging waste that they generated, joined together to create DSD......
Introduction Contd...- Next Page>>
