Municipal failures hinder producer responsibility
This is the headline of a post in Børsen about the nearly impossible task the producer responsibility organisations (PRO's) face, when Danish companies must take responsibility for the handling of their products' packaging – the so-called producer responsibility – by October 1, 2025. The post is written by VANA's founders: Dansk Industri, Landbrug & Fødevarer, DagSam, and Dansk Erhverv.
"We are fighting together with our founders to ensure that the economic framework for the producer responsibility is reasonable - and not least that it follows the frameworks established in the statutory order on packaging. In our daily operations, we have a very good practical collaboration with the municipalities - and this is important because starting from October 1, we will meet daily at, for example, the transfer stations, when the municipalities have collected packaging waste, and we take over the further transport and treatment. But when it comes to discussing the economy, things are lagging behind. The municipalities' calculated producer fees are almost 50% above the expected level when the political agreement on producer responsibility was made. And the fee to the municipalities makes up about 75% of the payment that companies are charged - in other words - about 75% of VANAs revenue goes directly to the municipalities," states Marianne Roed Jakobsen, VANA's CEO.
See VANAs base prices for Q4 2025 here.
Marianne continues: "First and foremost, there is the fundamental problem that there are enormous price differences from municipality to municipality. Specifically, regarding what it will cost to collect and treat exactly the same types of waste. The price differences are so large that geography becomes a much too significant factor in a reward system, which should be about getting companies to reduce their packaging consumption - as well as getting them to choose more environmentally friendly packaging materials. Additionally, VANA, on behalf of our members, must pay for 3 months of municipal collection in advance of October 1. This means around 300 million kroner. And this is a payment for 3 months of emptying citizens' trash bins, which we as citizens have already paid once through our waste fees. Now we are "eagerly" waiting to see if the guarantee we need to provide to Dansk Producentansvar (DPA) by September 3 will comply with the order: namely, to cover the transport and treatment of household waste. And nothing else."
Read the post from VANAs founders in Børsen here (behind a paywall).