Comment: Pointless to shift the bill for plastic

We have major problems with plastic. Far too little is recycled. Far too much is incinerated, causing climate emissions.

What is remarkable is that Avfall Sverige and Fastighetsägarna in DI recently do not focus on reducing incineration – instead, they try to shift the bill around.

Through us at Näringslivets Producentansvar (NPA) and other producer responsibility organisations, all companies selling packaged goods finance the entire collection and recycling system. Around three billion kronor per year is channelled in this way to Swedish municipalities to establish property‑close collection of packaging.

Recently, NPA reached out to everyone in Sweden who handles packaging and waste. In a report showing that current measures are insufficient to meet the material recycling target, we also present ways forward to increase recycling. We had hoped it would serve as a basis for discussion on how recycling can be improved.

NPA, Avfall Sverige and Fastighetsägarna have identified a shared problem: recycled plastic struggles to compete with cheaper fossil plastic. The issue is that Avfall Sverige’s and Fastighetsägarnas’ proposal affects new plastic and recycled plastic in the same way.

And above all: their proposal will not reduce Sweden’s plastic levy to the EU, because the levy concerns plastic packaging that is not recycled.

The most important measure for achieving the recycling target for plastics is to double the sorting and collection of plastic packaging.

Only what is collected can be recycled. But today, only around 40 per cent of plastic packaging is collected by the municipalities – the members of Avfall Sverige – from households, i.e., within the sphere of Fastighetsägarna.

Swedish legislation assigns municipalities the responsibility for ensuring that collection works, households and businesses the responsibility to sort at source, and producers the responsibility to design packaging that can be recycled as well as to finance collection and ensure recycling takes place. The logical consequence of Avfall Sverige and Fastighetsägarnas’ proposal – to charge producers for the state’s costs to the EU – is that municipalities would also relinquish the collection of packaging waste. It is the municipalities that have control over a decisive key to increasing recycling; if they want the state’s costs to decrease, they must either increase collection rates or hand over responsibility for collection to someone else.

We find it somewhat audacious that those who own the incineration plants – the municipal members of Avfall Sverige – insist that we should burn less plastic. Especially since they import and burn nearly half a million tonnes of plastic from abroad each year.

We at NPA take responsibility for our part as a producer responsibility organisation. We have over 9,000 affiliated producers who receive support in developing their packaging to become increasingly recyclable. NPA cooperates with the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency, municipalities and the recycling industry to contribute to a well‑functioning system.

NPA wants Sweden’s plastic levy to the EU to decrease, instead of shifting the bill from taxpayers to the price of goods in shops.

We are prepared to do our part. We would also welcome Avfall Sverige and Fastighetsägarna contributing and taking their share of the responsibility, for example by ensuring that residents sort their waste correctly and to a much greater extent than today. There is a need for a national communication campaign that complements the municipalities’ information. Each municipality should be given its own collection target, and supervision of businesses’ sorting must be strengthened. Some businesses also need to significantly increase their sorting efforts to avoid unnecessary incineration of packaging.

Taking such measures is more responsible than pointing at someone else to pick up the bill. We welcome continued discussions with Avfall Sverige and Fastighetsägarna on how we can increase recycling.

Helena Nylén, CEO of Näringslivets Producentansvar