VANA maintains the pressure for lower costs and fair rules
VANA has just sent consultation response to the amendment of the statutory order on packaging with a series of specific requests to the authorities. We are particularly pushing to reduce companies' costs, ensure fairer competition conditions, and generally create greater predictability for companies with producer responsibility.
At VANA, we are diligently working to adapt the rules and framework conditions that today impose unnecessarily high costs and administrative burdens on our member companies.
With the proposed changes to the statutory order, important steps are being taken in the right direction. However, in our assessment, the changes are far from sufficient. We therefore maintain the pressure on the authorities to ensure that the producer responsibility is economically reasonable, transparent, and administratively manageable for our members.
CEO
Municipal fees must be reduced
One of our most important calls is for the municipal producer fees to be brought down to the politically anticipated level of about 1 billion DKK and a maximum of 1.2 billion DKK annually.
Although the Danish Energy Agency proposes maximum cost levels for the municipalities, our calculations show that the total fees may still risk exceeding 1.4 billion DKK annually.
It is, in our assessment, completely unacceptable. We are therefore pushing for all relevant municipal costs to be covered by a real financial cap, and for effective control over the municipalities' fee-setting to be implemented.
CEO
Fairer allocation and better predictability
The current allocation model risks imposing costs on companies that do not reflect their market shares. We have therefore complained to Dansk Producentansvar about the allocation for 2027-2028 in VANA and expect a change in the rules to ensure equal treatment between companies and producer responsibility organisations.
At the same time, we are pushing for the allocation and municipal fees to be published no later than August 1. This should provide producer responsibility organisations with better conditions to set prices at a time that gives companies the necessary predictability in relation to their budgeting.
The allocation key for wood should be further reduced
It is positive that the Danish Energy Agency suggests reducing the allocation key for wood from 16 to 9 pct. But it is still far too high in our assessment. The producer responsibility organisations' reports show that companies pay for the treatment of about 8 kg of wood waste for every kg of wood packaging they market.
We therefore maintain the call to reduce it to 2 pct., so that companies' payments more accurately reflect the actual packaging share in the waste.
Continued pressure for changes in other important areas
We continue to push for changes in several other important areas that contribute to unnecessary costs and unequal conditions:
Adjustment of key figures: The key figures for commercial packaging waste must be recalculated as soon as possible to avoid significant overcompensation.
Better framework for glass: Clear quality requirements must be imposed on municipalities' collection, and companies should not pay for additional costs resulting from inadequate municipal collection solutions.
No Danish overimplementation: Companies should not be made responsible for the recycling targets of member states in the EU regulation (PPWR).
Strengthened control: Authorities must take more effective action against free riders, so that companies complying with the rules do not end up paying the bill for those who do not.
We continue the work for better framework conditions
We maintain our focus on ensuring that producer responsibility functions as intended, and that companies are not imposed unreasonable costs and obligations.
We will continue our dialogue with the authorities unflinchingly and advocate for our specific calls to have an effect with the final statutory order. As always, we keep our members continuously informed about developments and the implications for your producer responsibility, which at this time does not entail new requirements for you.