A few days ago, a decision by the Polish Ministry of Climate and Environment introduced the eighth operator of the national deposit-return system to the market — the company Ecokaucja Polska S.A. It turns out that the entity is headed by Piotr R., while its sole shareholder is his company Polcopper. The businessman until recently was in custody facing serious charges of leading a so-called “waste mafia” — an organized criminal group allegedly committing environmental crimes related to the trade in waste, including materials classified as particularly hazardous, carcinogenic, toxic, and harmful to the environment.
A few days ago, the Ministry of Climate and Environment granted a permit to operate a deposit-return system to yet another entity. The license went to Ecokaucja Polska S.A., a Poznań-based company with share capital of 5 million złoty.
Data from the National Court Register clearly shows that Piotr R. serves as the president of the management board of Ecokaucja. The operator’s sole shareholder is Polcopper — a well-known recycling and scrap-trading giant in the Greater Poland region, founded and owned by R. and his family.
The fact that this entity has been allowed to handle hundreds of millions of złoty within the state deposit-return system raises serious concerns. Piotr R. is a figure at the center of one of the country’s largest environmental investigations.
On October 1, 2025, the businessman was arrested by police in connection with an investigation into the so-called “waste mafia.” The investigation is being conducted by the National Prosecutor’s Office, which charged the president of Ecokaucja with leading an organized criminal group whose purpose was to commit environmental crimes related to the trade in waste — including substances with particularly dangerous, carcinogenic, toxic, and environmentally harmful properties. The multi-threaded investigation covers the group’s activities from January 2020 to September 2025.
After hearing the charges, R. — the former president of the speedway club Fogo Unia Leszno — was placed in pre-trial detention, where he spent a total of four months. He was released only at the beginning of February this year following a decision by the Court of Appeal in Łódź.
Preventive measures were imposed on the businessman after his release: he was banned from leaving the country and ordered to report to a police station as many as five times a week. Last month, National Prosecutor’s Office spokesperson prosecutor Katarzyna Calów-Jaszewska commented on the decision to release the businessman from custody:
“The court concluded that preventive measures are sufficient at this stage of the investigation,” she said, adding that the court’s ruling based on the collected evidence indicates that “there is a high risk that Piotr R. may commit an offense.”
Most controversial of all is the fact that the formal decision of the Ministry of Climate and Environment granting Ecokaucja Polska a license was issued on January 28, 2026. This means the ministry granted a state license to the company at a time when its president was still in custody facing charges of running a “waste mafia.”
The deposit-return system, which has been operating since last year, has been struggling with organizational chaos for months. Despite assurances from Deputy Minister of Climate and Environment Anita Sowińska, Poles complain about malfunctioning and overloaded return machines.
“There are also elements of the system that are already counting losses. Local governments are drawing their own conclusions. For them, the deposit system means losing the most valuable raw materials that could otherwise have been recycled. Until now, waste-sorting plants — built at enormous cost — automatically separated those products that could later be sold,” writes Jacek Liziniewicz in the latest issue of Gazeta Polska.
The rules of the system operating in Poland since autumn 2025 are simple: the customer pays a deposit in the store, and if they do not return the bottle or can, the money remains with the operators to cover, among other things, their own costs and administrative expenses. The ministry itself confirms this mechanism, explaining:
“Unclaimed deposits will go to the system operator and will be used to finance the system.”