Businesses fulfilling their legal (waste disposal) obligations themselves without recourse to the services of DSD.
See footnote on page 38
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On November 15, 1999 hair care product manufacturers, the hairdressing supplies industrial association (Industrieverband Friseurbedarf) and the waste disposal contractor Vfw addressed a formal complaint to the Commission. The complainants wished to organise a self-management system for the collection and recycling of packaging of products used by hairdressers and accused DSD of abusive behaviour.
Under the Commission's decision, DSD may therefore no longer charge a fee in Germany for that part of the sales packaging bearing the "Green Dot" for which it can be shown that the take-back and recovery obligation, as set out in the German packaging ordinance, has been properly fulfilled by another party, be that a competing system or a self-management solution. With this decision, the Commission has laid down a necessary condition to allow competition in the area of collection and recovery of used sales packaging in Germany. On July 5, 2001 DSD appealed this decision at the European Court of First Instance in Luxembourg.
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DSD does not itself operate waste disposal services but for this purpose concludes service contracts with waste disposal firms. DSD takes on the take-back and disposal obligations of manufacturers and dealers under the Packaging Ordinance against payment of a so-called license fee (contracts governing the use of the DSD trademark).

The liberalisation of the market for disposal services the EU Commission strives for has not been achieved. The possibilities for competition from self-management solutions and alternative dual systems are limited. The Bundeskartellamt thus had to initiate boycott proceedings against DSD at the end of this July. According to the latest stage of investigation, DSD and several associations have induced a boycott against alternative suppliers in order to protect DSD from competition.

http://www.bundeskartellamt.de/wEnglisch/News/Archiv/ArchivN...