Visiting with the Minister for the Environment at ReSource Denmark
Source separation, Chinese plastic and producer responsibility were on the agenda when representatives from the plastics and waste industries, including VANA, gathered for a joint dialogue on industry challenges during yesterday’s ministerial visit to ReSource Denmark — Denmark’s largest plastic sorting facility and a VANA collaboration partner.
How can we more effectively manage our own waste and ensure the best recycling of our plastic waste in Denmark — and how can we together solve the challenges that are putting pressure on the recycling and waste industry?
Those were some of the questions discussed when Environment Minister, Magnus Heunicke, and three spokespeople from the SVM government visited Denmark’s largest plastic sorting facility on Monday, 26 January. The visit included, among other things, a tour of the facility, which annually sorts 90,000 tonnes of plastic waste from Danish households.
There were especially three important topics on the agenda for the subsequent dialogue. Among them was the need for continued source separation — i.e., sorting at home in people’s own kitchens — and the challenges this creates for industry when municipalities merge fractions such as plastic and metal.
“Source separation by citizens produces clean material streams that industry can actually use again, and thus high recycling,” explained CEO of Ressource Danmark, Flemming Horn Nielsen, during the tour, where he also demonstrated why recycling becomes worse when the sorting machines have to handle plastic mixed with, for example, hard metal.
Industry calls for more regulation
During the visit, time was also set aside to discuss the financial framework for the extended producer responsibility EPR. The minister, who was in a positive mood after the visit, said:
"It is an important priority for me to strengthen the circular economy. ReSource delivers a crucial contribution to our ability to recycle more plastic in Denmark instead of sending it for incineration or exporting it. It is fascinating to see firsthand how the technology in this area is developing, and at the same time to see the great potential in strengthening the circular economy and thereby transforming even more waste into valuable resources."
There was strong receptiveness and interest in hearing about the start of the producer responsibility on packaging, our experiences from the first three months of operation — and not least the many challenges our members still face.
CEO
Besides Environment Minister Magnus Heunicke, the environment spokespeople Erling Bonnesen (V), Henrik Frandsen (M) and Thomas Monberg (S) also participated, as well as Esbjerg’s mayor Jesper Frost Rasmussen, Christina Busk, head of environmental policy for Plastindustrien, Marianne Roed Jakobsen, CEO at VANA and ReSource Denmark’s CEO, Flemming Horn Nielsen.
Read more about VANA's cooperation agreement with Resource Denmark.