How expensive will packaging be in 2025?

Preliminary calculations show that the future producer responsibility for packaging may lead to an increase in retail sales prices of around 2 per cent.

News 22 February 2024

When approximately 40,000 Danish companies are subject to the producer responsibility for their packaging next year, their production costs will increase significantly. The PRO (Producer Responsibility Organisation) VANA, which offers to take care of the producer responsibility for companies, says that experts have estimated it could result in an increase in retail sales prices of about 2 per cent. That is seen over a wide spectrum across all industries in Denmark.

The reason for the expected increase in retail sales prices is, of course, that the producer responsibility for packaging increases the administrative costs of the companies, and that the companies now have to pay for the collection, sorting and reprocessing of their packaging.

Marianne Roed Jakobsen
CEO, VANA

The producer responsibility for packaging means that companies must ensure that their packaging is collected and delivered to a sorting and recycling facility. Concurrently with this, the companies must register with Danish Producer Responsibility and report their consumption of packaging. If they do not want to do it themselves, they can sign up with a PRO, such as VANA.

The consumption must then be paid for, and the principle is that the more packaging the company consumes, the more the company must pay. Some types of packaging are cheaper than others because they have a higher recycling potential. For example, it will be cheaper to use paper and cardboard than using plastics.

Get a price estimate for waste management in 2025 here.

It will be very different from industry to industry – and from company to company – how much of the costs end up with the customer. At the same time, we see that many of our large member companies are working both strategically and innovatively in relation to, e.g. reducing their packaging volumes. We would like to contribute to scaling out this knowledge across the industries.

Marianne Roed Jakobsen
CEO, VANA

More about VANA

VANA has been established by the Confederation of Danish Industry, the Danish Agriculture & Food Council, the Danish Chamber of Commerce and DagSam, and the PRO already has many of the country's largest production companies as members.

Learn more about our founders here.
Find a selection of VANA's members here.

VANA has also built up a wide range of foreign collaborations, which means that Danish companies can solve their producer responsibility within their export markets.   

Learn more about our partnerships here.

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