New requirements for the producer responsibility – Effective from October 1, 2025

This summer, the government decided on changes to the waste legislation, several of which concern packaging. Some changes will come into effect on October 1, 2025:

• New requirements for producer responsibility organisations (PROs):
From October 1, producer responsibility organisations must accept packaging waste from the post-sorting of residual waste free of charge. The goal is to increase recycling. However, we see a risk that the material will often be of low quality, and the definition ‘mainly packaging waste’ creates uncertainty. The short notice also risks increasing costs for producers.

• Changes in the curbside collection:
Municipalities will have greater flexibility. Curbside collection is defined as up to 400 meters from the property. In sparsely populated areas, municipalities may also make exceptions to curbside collection and instead collect waste from designated collection points.

 

In addition, the government has announced further changes:

• Upcoming requirements from 2028:
Producer responsibility organisations will also be required to post-sort separately collected packaging waste if it can increase material recycling.

• Assignment to the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency regarding packaging waste:
The government has also tasked the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency with investigating how household packaging waste can be coordinated with other waste streams, i.e., material stream collection. This could, for example, mean that households could place non-packaging plastics in the plastic compartment of the four-compartment recycling bin. As part of the same task, the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency will examine who should bear the costs for packaging waste that is separated during post-sorting of residual waste. At NPA, we will provide input to this assignment, which will continue until next autumn.

As always, we are closely monitoring developments and will keep you, as an affiliated producer, updated.