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Sweden - New ordinance introduces key changes to the waste packaging regime - 15 July 2022

• follows a Nov-21 Government memorandum.
• replaces the Jul-18 Ordinance (2018:1462) of the same name as well as the Apr-05 Ordinance on Return Systems for Plastic Bottles and Metal Cans (2005:220).
• is amended by 2022:1275, also published on 6-Jul, which notably deletes an exemption from the DRS for dairy products starting 2030.
• is complemented by amendments (2022:1307 and 1308) to the Waste Ordinance which i.a. detail the obligations of holders of packaging waste.

• From 2024, municipalities must take-over bring sites from producers (respectively packaging PRO FTI). From 2026, bring sites are to be extended to parks above 2,000 sqm and crowded areas.
• From 2027, they must operate curbside collection programs and provide easily accessible bring sites for bulky household waste packaging.

• the free collection point of the "responsible PRO" selected under chapter 7 §1 of the new Packaging Ordinance or
• a "market-driven systems" reuse or recycling system that has notified the SNV under chapter 7 §12 to 16 of the new Packaging Ordinance or
• the DRS under chapter 3 § 4 - if the waste packaging are beverage plastic bottles or metal cans - or 
• the municipality's collection system - if the waste management of the business is "co-located" with household an
• d the business has notified the municipality according to chapter 7 §10 of the ordinance .

• Producers of packaging containing over 50% plastic are to collectively contribute to a goal of said packaging to contain an average of 30% recycled content by 2030 (non-statutory);
• SUP PET bottles <3L to contain on average 25% recycled content from 2025; all plastic beverage containers <3L: 30% from 2030;
• lids to be attached to SUP bottles from 2-Jun-24.

News from Industry

• Majority of food buyers report surge in food waste, study finds; Sodexo says this “surge” casts doubt on the food industry’s ability to meet the UN’s Sustainable Development Goal to reduce food waste by 50% by 2030, and hampers progress to net zero.
• One in four UK adults willing to pay more for sustainable packaging; A quarter of UK adults would shell out for more eco-friendly packaging, according to new research, but consumers should continue to “seek out wines in alternative packaging wherever possible”, according to industry campaigner.
• James Cropper claims post Brexit and pandemic success with profits up 62%; Revenue rose from £78.8m in March 2021 to £104.9m in March 2022, while profit before tax rose from £1.7m to £2.8m
• Study reveals impact of alcohol packaging on young people; New research from the University of Stirling has highlighted the significant impact that alcohol packaging has on capturing the attention of, and creating appeal amongst, young people. The study – published in the Journal for Studies on Alcohol and Drugs – also found that packaging helps shape perceptions of the product, drinker and drinking experience.
• Deposit Return System for packaging still faces uncertain calendar in Romania; The 18-month deadline for the implementation of the Deposit Return System (DRS) for packaging, proposed by retailers, is not acceptable for the Romanian state, the minister of environment Barna Tanczos said. He was speaking to journalists after the Government approved the state's subscription as a 20% shareholder of the body supposed to manage the scheme, beside associations of FMCG producers and retailers.
• 16 Beauty Leaders on Reimagining Packaging for a Sustainability-Conscious Age; Can’t stand the thought of more plastic bobbing in the ocean? These forward-thinking brands aim to usher in a new era of sustainable beauty, from the outside in.
• Gover to depart WRAP at the end of the year; He will leave the climate and waste NGO at the end of the year. In a statement, Gover said that he felt it was the “right time” to handover to a new chief executive and take WRAP forward. The process of recruiting a new chief executive has begun.
• Europe is seeing a hiring boom in packaging industry robotics roles; Europe was the fastest growing region for robotics hiring among packaging industry companies in the three months ending May. The number of roles in Europe made up 17.9% of total robotics jobs – up from 9.8% in the same quarter last year.
• Deposit return scheme: government to reconsider time frame for rollout; The government has told the industry it is willing to reconsider its time frame for the introduction of extended producer responsibility and a deposit return scheme, as it comes under pressure to tackle the cost of living crisis. With the two landmark environmental schemes expected to cost the industry upwards of £2.5bn a year, environment secretary George Eustice told an FDF parliamentary reception in Westminster yesterday that the government recognised the issues facing the industry were “complicated”.
• Reusable, lightweight or recyclable beauty? 'Reusability should be prioritised', say researchers; Design to reuse should be prioritised as a sustainable beauty strategy because its overall positive impact far outweighs working with reduced or recyclable materials, according to European researchers.  
• New project delivers 152% recycling increase in Lambeth flats; A pilot project by ReLondon introduced food waste recycling, textiles and small electrical collections alongside refreshed recycling facilities on four Lambeth estates which led to a 152% increase in their average recycling rate, rising from 11% to 27%.
• ReSea Project calls on food & drink companies to help ocean clean-ups; ReSea Project is a Danish company which removes plastic from oceans and rivers and claims to have taken 1.4m million kilos of plastic out of oceans and rivers in the last year. Operating out of South-East Asia, it is working with major brands which are able promote their sustainability credentials to consumers via their websites, on-product and beyond, including The Hidden Sea Wine and Stoli vodka.
• Study suggests British people throw away £2.2 billion worth of homeware each year; Almost one in ten people (9%) throw away unwanted furniture, cushions, lamps and more – amounting to 69.9 million items every year. The study also shows that despite Gen Z (18 -24 year olds) claiming to be sustainably minded, they‘re buying and throwing away items for their homes more frequently than other age groups.
• Finalist interview: Berlin Packaging’s carbon neutral wine bottle; Berlin Packaging’s Aurelia is a carbon neutral wine bottle produced using renewable energy sources, with an offsetting programme for the remaining CO2 emissions.
• Siemens and Plastic Energy collaborate to boost chemical recycling plants; Two of Plastic Energy’s Spanish plants have incorporated Siemens’ automation and measurement technology, including SIMATIC PCS 7 and COMOS MRO. The long-term collaboration is said to enable Plastic Energy to continually evolve its technology and process.
• RECOUP calls for a consistent approach to the collection of recycling data; Charity and plastics recycling organisation, RECOUP, have called for a consistent approach to the collection of recycling data and accuracy in plastics recycling communications.
• Cirplus sounds warning over availability of European sorted plastic; The low availability of sorted plastic will negatively impact the operations of plastic recyclers in Europe, Cirplus is warning.
• Circularity Scotland announces Biffa as logistics partner for UK’s first DRS; Circularity Scotland Ltd, the not-for-profit scheme administrator for the Deposit Return Scheme (DRS) in Scotland, has signed an agreement with Biffa that will see the sustainable waste management company become the scheme’s official logistics service provider.
• Eustice hints at delay over ‘risks’ in EPR reform; The environment secretary, George Eustice, has warned that Defra is willing to take longer on implementing extended producer responsibility (EPR) reforms where he feels there is a “risk”.
• Research: Three times more fires caused by batteries in waste stream than previously reported;The research was commissioned to mark the launch of a new campaign “Stop Battery Fires Campaign” to raise awareness of how householders can recycle their batteries and electricals.
• DS Smith has removed over 300 million pieces of “problem plastic” from packaging; The figure equates to more than three million units per week, as customers and consumers demonstrate demand for fibre-based packaging as an alternative to hard-to-recycle plastics, DS Smiths says.
• Minimising ESG risks poses a threat to a sustainable future, RepRisk says; The Zurich-based organisation says that while regulation is stepping in with good intentions, investors and consumers need to do significant research, reading the fine print and assessing actions, to determine the truth behind sustainability claims.
• ACTEGA pushes labels sustainability agenda with liquid foil Ecoleaf technology; It says each year, thousands of tons of foil waste are sent to landfill or burned at incineration plants. Ecoleaf offers a completely different process that eliminates the need for foil completely and uses significantly less raw materials to achieve a comparably high-quality result.
• Two vapes thrown away every second; New research commissioned by Material Focus has identified that 1.3 million disposable (single-use) vapes are thrown away every week; per annum this is enough to cover 22 football pitches.
• Companies making shift to circular business models want more government help; Companies making the change from linear to circular business models, aimed at keeping products in use for much longer, want more help from the government, according to a new Green Alliance report.
• Sirane adds spouted pouches to recyclable plastic range; The RePEat range – which includes stand-up pouches and films – is all made from pure PE, and can be recycled in the LDPE recycling stream.
• Northern Trains and Biffa trial innovation to increase recycling;Northern Trains, alongside waste management partner Biffa, are deploying smart bin sensors at 70 stations across the North East in a bid to increase recycling. Manufactured in the UK by IoT Solutions Group, the sensors will give Northern Trains real-time recycling volumes from individual bins, helping them monitor and improve recycling rates.
• Bans on more unrecyclable plastic “urgently needed”, says waste authority; The UK’s second largest waste authority and London’s largest, North London Waste Authority (NLWA), has called on the UK government to “urgently” ban more single-use plastics and introduce a 50p charge on coffee cups “without delay”.
• Co-op introduces “freeze me” message on milk to cut food waste; Co-op is introducing a “freeze me” message to its own brand milk products, in a bid to cut down on 70,000 tonnes of milk wasted a year.
• Cross-party MPs call on UK government to include cartons in deposit return scheme; In a letter to Environment Secretary George Eustice MP, made public today (13 July), 20 Conservative, Labour and Liberal Democrat MPs have urged the UK Government to “widen the scope” of materials included its proposals for a DRS.
• Consumption levels contributing to biodiversity loss, says EA chief; The EA says action will be required to address the levels of consumption in wealthy countries, which contribute to the loss of biodiversity, and that sustained effort will be required from many people and organisations at forums like the COP 15 meeting of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity to tackle the effects of global consumption, production and supply chains.
• Circular economy revolution around offshore wind could create 20,000 extra jobs; The report examines the offshore wind sector up to 2050 and sets out the huge supply chain opportunity created by the volume of projected growth across Scotland, following the Scottish Government target to increase capacity to 11GW of offshore wind in Scotland by 2030, the ScotWind leasing round, and the Innovation and Targeted Oil and Gas (INTOG) leasing process.
• The Big Plastic Count “paints a dire picture” of the UK’s waste management systems, say campaigners; Globally, over 350 million tonnes of plastic are created each year, according to UNEP. Greenpeace and Everyday Plastic say that the “failure” to manage the waste this creates is having disastrous effects on human health and ecosystems worldwide.
• BPF hits back at recycling claims in Big Plastic Count report; The British Plastics Federation (BPF) has responded to the Big Plastic Count survey, arguing that it is “unhelpful” to promote the message that recycling doesn’t work. The report claimed that the UK’s recycling systems can’t cope with the amount of plastic packaging waste leaving household. It also claimed that only 12% of plastic packaging is likely to be recycled in the UK.
• £1 billion Teesside sustainable aviation fuels plant could be first of three built in UK; alfanar, a global project development, manufacturing, and engineering company, has outlined its vision for a series of multi-billion-pound green investments in the UK. The first of these investments, the planned £1bn Lighthouse Green Fuels waste-to-SAF plant, entered the FEED phase in June after alfanar awarded the contract to Worley. This milestone makes the project “the most advanced SAF facility in the UK today” and is due online in 2027, the company says.
• Poll reveals growing public frustration with businesses using wasteful packaging; Oversized packaging generating 86,071 tonnes of excess CO2 emissions annually, equivalent to nearly 5 million online delivery journeys. New research from DS Smith reveals that 85 million m3 of air is being shipped to UK homes each year due to what it calls “unnecessary packaging”. It says this equivalent to more than 34,000 Olympic swimming pools.
• Partnership to drive innovation in recovered carbon black; Newcastle University’s partnership with Wastefront will see what it calls “cutting-edge industry innovation emerge from research conceived in the North of England, ensuring the region is at the forefront of progressing circularity across Europe”.
• Study: Millennials waste more food than any other generation; A recent study by Currys suggests millennials waste more food than any other generation, with Gen Z not far behind.
• UK’s first “plastic park” approved by councillors; Peel NRE, part of Peel L&P, are behind the blueprint, which it says will feature innovative processing and treatment technologies to make the most of up to 367,500  tonnes of mixed recyclables and plastic every year.
• New sugar beet fibre developed and claims big savings in C02; The new development consists of microfibrilated cellulose from sugar beet and a newly developed coating that is said to block oxygen, water, and fat. Lars Germann, centre manager at Danish Technological Institute said: “We expect that the new type of packaging can replace up to 10,000 tons of plastic packaging for food with 8,000 tons of recyclable and biodegradable paper packaging in Denmark. This means a CO2 saving of more than 20,000 tons per year.”
• “First of its kind” nappy and sanitary product recycling trial launches in Bristol; Baby care company Pura says it’s “one step closer” to making nappy recycling available to all UK parents, as it launches a new pilot in Bristol.
  The initiative will see kerbside collection of nappies, and hygiene products such as sanitary towels, recycled and repurposed in what it calls “the first trial of its kind” in England. A similar Scottish nappy recycling trial was conducted by Zero Waste Scotland in 2013.
• Double appointed new minister at DEFRA; Double appointment follows an extraordinary week at Westminster, with over 50 resignations from government in an attempt to oust Prime Minister Boris Johnson. Last week, ministers Rebecca Pow and Jo Churchill resigned from their positions at DEFRA.
• Food redistribution is rising significantly, WRAP report finds; WRAP says the latest figures for surplus food redistribution in the UK show that the amount of food saved from becoming waste continues to rise significantly, despite nearly 200,000 tonnes of surplus food still going uneaten and becoming waste in the supply chain each year.
• Robinson: paperboard packaging demands soar with focus on UK supplies; Helene Roberts, chief executive, said the paperboard market is expected to grow at a year-on-year rate of 3.5%, creating a significant opportunity for UK suppliers.
• India bans single-use plastics to stem pollution problem; India has implemented a ban on single-use plastic items ranging from straws to ice cream sticks in an attempt to stem the country’s plastic pollution problem. Plastic pollution has become ubiquitous in India, the world’s second most populous country. Plastic debris can be found stacked along roadsides, floating in waterways and choking drainage systems.
• Biffa report: Less than half of SMEs use a recycling service despite motivation to be sustainable; A survey of over 1000 small to medium-sized businesses in the UK revealed 59% of organisations asked feel sustainability is ‘very important’ to their business, while 27% said it was ‘quite important’ or ‘important’.
• DEFRA minister among mass resignations from Johnson government; Jo Churchill was a junior minister at DEFRA and joined a long line of cabinet and junior ministers resigning from government. Chancellor Rishi Sunak, Health Secretary Sajid Javid and education minister Will Quince all resigned, while Levelling Up Secretary Michael Gove was sacked. Johnson has now resigned as Prime Minister and leader of the Conservative Party but is expected to remain in office until a successor is in place by October. It remains to be seen if he gets his way or if Conservative MPs will force him to leave Downing Street immediately, with an interim Prime Minister in place until the Autumn.
• Hubbub and Lambeth Council launch new recycling on-the-go initiative; The ‘Lambeth #InTheLoop’ campaign is designed to make it easier for people to recycle empty glass, plastic bottles, cans. With the ‘Lambeth #InTheLoop’ campaign, 80 new look bins (40 pairs of recycling and rubbish bins) will be positioned strategically across Waterloo, Vauxhall, Brixton, Clapham, Streatham and West Norwood, busy areas with a wide range of residents, visitors and commuters, to encourage them to recycle on-the-go.
• Amazon phases out plastic air pillows in its UK fulfilment network; UK customers shopping with Amazon whose orders are shipped from Amazon’s fulfilment centres will no longer receive items packed with plastic air pillows. This includes items sold directly by Amazon, and by third-party selling partners who ship their products using Fulfilment by Amazon (FBA). Instead of plastic air pillows, Amazon says the items will be packed with 100% recycled and 100% recyclable packing paper, known as dunnage, which is designed to prevent movement within boxes and keep items safe.
• UK's Magical Mushroom Company uses mycelium to replace plastic packaging; Paul Gilligan, CEO and founder at Magical Mushroom Company, said in a statement: “We have just eight years to meet the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals and businesses have a crucial role to play – but they need viable and cost-effective solutions that significantly reduce the carbon footprint across their entire supply chain. We’re proud to be creating value from waste and unlocking the potential of mycelium.”
• Virtual reality study finds people adapted to deposit return schemes in 7 weeks; A new white paper study that tracked the behaviour of over 5,000 people in a virtual reality shopping environment found that most participants adapted to a deposit return scheme (DRS) in seven weeks.
• Only 18% of UK SMEs are aware of the UN sustainable development goals; New YouGov research has revealed only 18% of UK SMEs are aware of the UN sustainable development goals (SDG), despite making up 99% of all UK organisations.
  The research, which was commissioned by business improvement and standards company 
• Concerns raised over packaging and recycling policy reform delays; The Environmental Services Association (ESA), has written an open letter to Defra Minister Jo Churchill voicing concerns about the mounting timescale pressures on recycling and waste providers to implement the emerging Resources and Waste Strategy reforms within the Government’s desired timescales.
• Viridor research finds £1bn investment needed to end UK plastic exports; New independent research conducted by global sustainability activator Anthesis and commissioned by Viridor, suggests the amount of plastic packaging ending up in household recycling bins is set to increase by 45% by 2035.
• Spray-On, Rinse-Off Food ‘Wrapper’ Can Cut Plastic Packaging; Now researchers say they have developed a nontoxic, biodegradable and antimicrobial food coating that could reduce food waste and foodborne illness without adding plastic to the environment. A new study shows this material can be effectively sprayed on individual pieces of produce, such as fruits or vegetables. Removing it is as simple as rinsing it off with water.