Three quick questions to Bengt Lagerman

Previously, Bengt was the CEO of Returpack/Pantamera and has held several senior positions at companies such as Coca-Cola and Procter & Gamble. He has also served on the boards of The Keep Sweden Tidy Foundation, Svenska Retursystem, and currently serves on the board of Ecolabelling Sweden/Svanen. 

We had the opportunity to ask Bengt three quick questions. 

If you could choose only one activity to bring Sweden closer to its packaging recycling targets, what would it be? 

Around 25–30 percent of what ends up in residual household waste is still packaging. Households need to improve both how and how accurately they sort their packaging. That’s why I believe Sweden needs a national awareness campaign, similar to the successful approach taken by @Pantamera. The message should be clear, humorous, and non-moralising. The goal is to highlight the importance of source separation and build trust in the recycling system. Sorting packaging correctly is easy, and it benefits both the environment and society. To make an impact, this communication needs to be long-term and repeated over time. 

What is the most important issue right now within the producer responsibility? 

The key issue is eliminating freeriding. Unfortunately, a large share of packaging placed on the market is not reported, meaning those companies do not take financial responsibility for collection and recycling. This undermines fair competition — those who comply end up paying both for their own packaging and for those who do not. Monitoring and enforcement against freeriding is the responsibility of authorities, and it is crucial for producer responsibility systems to work as intended. In addition to adequate enforcement resources, significantly higher penalty fees — preferably linked to company turnover — are required to be effective. 

What is your favourite type of packaging, and why? 

To qualify as a favourite, a packaging must be easy to recycle in a resource-efficient way, preferably into new packaging. It must also protect and preserve the product it contains. And finally, it must be easy for me as a consumer to source separate when it’s time to recycle it.