Electronic equipment and batteries
The statistics is based on administrative data delivered through online questionnaires to the Swedish EPA’s register. The Swedish EPA is frequently monitoring the reported data and can when necessary make changes, also in published statistics. The Swedish EPA has a direct dialogue with the producers if verification or supplementing of data is needed.
Cars
Data linked to the EPR for cars is reported to the Swedish EPA through the Swedish trade organization for producers and importers of cars, trucks and busses. The data from the stakeholders is partly compiled by the trade organization. The Swedish EPA processes the data further to enable reporting to EU. The Swedish EPA will contact the trade organization if verification or supplementing data is required. Some improvement is still needed regarding, for example, following up and verifying submitted information.
Tires
The Swedish EPA receives data on tires from the trade organization for the EPR for tires, which are contacted if verification or supplementing of data is needed.
Packaging and paper
Most of the producers are affiliated to a material organization. A material organization is a company that several producers have joined in to fulfill their producer responsibility by arrange and run collection systems for packaging waste.
Producers report their data to the material organizations, and the data is later collected through questionnaires by SMED (Swedish MiljöEmissionsData) on behalf of the Swedish EPA. Producers that are not affiliated to a material organization should report corresponding data directly to the Swedish EPA. SMED compile all received information. The information is not further verified, although plausibility assessment and logical relations will be controlled.
Improvement factors and future plans
All extended producer responsibility groups have an issue with so called “free riders” – producers that put products on the market but does not take responsibility for them by, for example, not taking part in the collection of the waste and by not reporting to the Swedish EPA. These producers are also likely to not be affiliated to a material organization or trade organization. Another issue concerning mainly packaging is that the producer responsibility does not always apply to distance sales. These factors will contribute to uncertainties in the exact number of products put on the market and the statistics will not be completely correct.
Year 2020, a general IT system was launched for reporting and registering of the producer responsibility. First to be launched was a module for electronic equipment and batteries and from 2021 a module for reporting of packaging and paper will be added, where all the packaging and paper producers register. This will make supervision easier and help reduce the issues mentioned above. The future plan is to include all the extended producer responsibilities. A general IT system for extended producer responsibilities will help the monitoring and the extraction of data for statistics and reporting to EU or to follow up national targets. It will also be easier to verify data by comparing years.
Currently, material recycling of packaging waste is measured as the amounts that are added to an efficient recycling- or material recycling process. Using this measurement point the losses that occur later in the process or value chain will not be accounted for. The European Commission have developed a new method for how material recycling should be measured which will be ratified from 2020. With the new method, material recycling will be measured later in the recycling process and will thereby more correctly reflect the amount that is actually recycled to new materials. Though, through this change, several of the material recycling goals will be more difficult to reach.