Recycling packaging from households
What happens to household packaging after it has been collected, what affects recycling and what can you as a producer do to ensure that more packaging is recycled?
That’s why it’s important to sort packaging for recycling
By law, all households must sort their packaging and send it for recycling. By using the resources that already exist, we reduce the need for new raw materials and the emissions from incinerating unsorted packaging. In addition, it is less energy-intensive to use recycled raw materials in manufacturing than new raw materials.
When you sort, you contribute to a more circular society.
Remember!
- Empty the packaging of its contents.
- There is no need to wash the packaging.
- Make a distinction between packaging and other waste when sorting at source.
- Sort packaging in the correct bin, please use the sorting guide at sopor.nu
The recycling process in brief
The steps in the recycling process
Join us for a simple overview of how the recycling process for household packaging looks like in NPA, from producer to new packaging.
1. The producer places the packaging on the market
The product and its packaging will be available for purchase by consumers.
2. The consumer buys a packaged product
The packaging encloses, protects or presents the goods it contains.
3. When the packaging is used up, it is sorted at source or thrown away
Households sort and hand over their emptied packaging to the municipality's collection system for recycling. Packaging that is not source sorted and handed over for recycling is not recycled and negatively affects the Environmental Protection Agency's statistics for material recycling.
Approximately one fifth of what households leave in the packaging collection is missorted packaging or waste that is not packaging.
4. The municipality hands over collected packaging to NPA
The municipality collects household packaging and temporarily stores it at a transshipment station, where an initial quality assurance of the collected packaging is carried out. Larger items that are not packaging are sorted out.
NPA collects its market share from the municipality's transshipment station and transports the packages to a reception facility.
5. Intermediate storage and baling at reception facility
At NPA's contracted reception facilities, the packaging is temporarily stored, roughly sorted and reloaded for further transport to sorting and recycling facilities. Plastic and paper packaging is baled for more efficient transport.
6. From reception facility to sorting and recycling
In the final step, the packaging goes to sorting and recycling facilities to be given new life as new packaging or products.
How we take care of collected packaging
The packaging waste from households is treated at the sorting and recycling facilities we cooperate with. Our ambition for the packaging we are responsible for is for it to be recycled as much as possible. We therefore reward circular material recycling over linear. If circular material recycling is not possible, however, linear material recycling is preferable to energy extraction.
All plastic packaging we collect from the municipalities is transported to Svensk Plaståtervinning, for sorting at the Site Zero facility in Motala. Here, twelve plastic fractions can be sorted out at the world’s largest and most advanced sorting facility for plastic packaging.
Site Zero enables circular recycling of up to 56 percent of the plastic packaging that passes through the facility, 21 percent of the packaging that is sorted can be recycled to a lower quality and the material can rarely be included in new packaging. Some process loss also occurs in the sorting and recycling process.
The sorted plastic is then sent to certified partners within the EU for material recycling. Svensk Plaståtervinning is preparing to be able to wash and granulate the plastic on site at Site Zero in the next step.
The paper packaging we pick up from the municipalities is material recycled at a recycling paper mill. Simply put, you can say that there are two different processes for recycling paper packaging.
They either go into a process where it is possible to recycle the paper fibres, also in packaging of mixed materials such as beverage cartons (eg milk cartons). In Sweden, that process is only available at Fiskeby Board in Norrköping, which receives about half of the packaging that we have collected from the municipalities.
From the recycled paper fibres, Fiskeby produces recycled cardboard which is sold to printers and packaging manufacturers. There, it is printed and punched into various formats, to be resurrected as pizza boxes, pasta packages and the like.
Remaining paper packaging is transported to recycling facilities in northern Europe. Pre-sorting usually takes place here, where packages of mixed materials are sorted out and sent to energy recovery. This is because most mills cannot handle paper packaging of mixed materials in their process. However, our goal is that all packaging containing paper fiber must be recycled.
The glass packaging we collect from the municipalities is delivered to Svensk Glasåtervinning in Hammar. Here, the glass is broken into smaller shards as a partial step in order to be sorted into raw material that is recycled in the glass mills in the next step.
About 60 percent of the recyclable material becomes new glass packaging, the rest becomes glass wool and foam glass. Uncolored and brown glass become new packaging in the form of glass jars and glass bottles. Most of the green glass is treated in the same way, but some is crushed and ground into smaller pieces to become raw material for the manufacture of glass wool insulation. Broken glass of lower quality becomes foam glass.
All the metal packaging we collect from the municipalities is delivered to Skrotfrag AB and transported to their facilities in Järna and Ulricehamn. At the plant, the metal packaging is sorted with magnetic help. Manual sorting also takes place where missorted material, such as nitrous oxide tubes, is removed.
Steel and aluminum packages are separated from each other. The sorted metal packaging is then sent to various smelters for material recycling. All steel and aluminum that is sent to smelters is recycled circularly and becomes new products and packaging. The smelters make plates, profiles and ingots that can become new raw materials or be used for example car bodies, tire rims or engine parts.
As a producer, do you want to know more about how the recycling process works for a certain type of material?
Swedish Plastic Recycling
When you are affiliated to us, your plastic packaging gets the chance to be recycled at their new sorting facility Site Zero – the world’s largest and most advanced plastic recycling facility.
With Site Zero, Swedish Plastic Recycling doubles its capacity and triples the number of plastic types it can receive, sort and recycle.
In this way, we create the conditions to recycle all of our producers’ plastic packaging and create circular plastic flows.
Swedish Glass Recycling
The glass packaging we collect from municipalities is delivered to Swedish Glass Recycling in Hammar. They currently recycle over 90 percent of all glass packaging in Sweden.
Every weekday, Swedish Glass Recycling receives 900 tons of glass packaging, which they sort, crush and process into a new raw material.
Glass can be recycled over and over again and become new wine bottles and jam jars.
Skrotfrag
All metal packaging we collect from the municipalities is delivered to Skrotfrag AB and transported to their facilities in Järna and Ulricehamn.
At the facility, steel and aluminum packaging is separated from each other using magnets. The sorted metal packaging is then sent to various smelters for material recycling.
Metal packaging can be recycled over and over again and become new products and packaging.
Fiskeby
About half of the paper packaging we collect from the municipalities is material recycled at Fiskeby Board in Norrköping.
Fiskeby can also recycle the paper fibers in packaging made of mixed materials such as beverage cartons.
From the recycled paper fibres, Fiskeby produces recycled cardboard which is sold to printers and packaging manufacturers, to be resurrected as pizza boxes, pasta packaging and the like.
