Important updates for packaging and EEE producers

24 August 2022

For the last couple of months, the Swedish Government has worked on reforming and adjusting legislation relating to extended producer responsibility (EPR).

In June 2022, the new Producer Responsibility for Waste Packaging, Ordinance 2022:1274 was published. From 1st January 2023, it will replace and partially merge two ordinances previously regulating packaging:

  • Ordinance 2018:1462, Producer Responsibility for Waste Packaging, and
  • Regulation 2005:220, Return Systems for Plastic Bottles and Metal Cans, which was the basis for beverage deposits

The new Ordinance will also integrate some requirements from the Single-Use Plastics Directive (2019/904/EU).

The new legal act has kept some requirements from the previous Packaging Ordinance: for example, the producer obligation to be a member of a compliance organisation or return scheme. Alternatively, a producer can also set up its own scheme.

However, the major change is to address identified problems with efficient and country-wide packaging waste collection.

Packaging Ordinance 2022:1274 introduces the responsibility of producers and their producer responsibility organisations (PROs) to cover municipality packaging waste collection costs. The distribution of this cost will involve the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency, which will act as a clearing house. If producers do not have PROs, they will be directly responsible for covering these costs.

The Swedish Government has also updated the country’s WEEE requirements with the new Producer Responsibility for Electrical and Electronic Waste, Ordinance 2022:1276.

The changes focus mainly on transposing the Waste Directive requirements related to PROs – for example, a modulated fee compensation mechanism – and the introduction of an obligation to incentivise more efficient separate collection of WEEE from owners. One example of these incentives is a planned deposit on small WEEE as proposed in Draft SOU 2021:26 (see article here).

Sweden is one of the countries covered by Landbell Group’s regulatory tracking service. Find out more about the service here.