Producer responsibility is a key element of the circular economy

Producer responsibility pays off

Circular economy is about creating sustainable growth. It is about using our natural resources and designing products in a way that extracted raw materials are used in a respectful manner and as many times as possible. They should not end up in a landfill, but in a new product. Therefore, an efficient organisation of your producer responsibility may be profitable from a resource point of view, and thereby also from an economic angle.

The idea behind passing on the responsibility for certain product streams – also at the end of their useful life – to those businesses that produce or sell the products is to establish an incentive to develop more environment-friendly and recyclable products, allowing the contained materials to enter into new production cycles.

Take-back of your products

Producer responsibility gives the opportunity to all end-users to discard their end-of-life products free of charge, be it electronics, batteries, or vehicles. Thereby, producers and importers can retrieve the material resources from the products to incorporate them into new production or sell them to the recycling or raw materials industries.

Two key elements

If you are not familiar with the above terms you may start here.

National register

First, all businesses that wish legally to sell electronics, batteries, or vehicles must register in the national producer register of the relevant country. In Denmark the producer register is found in DPA.

Reporting

Another key element of the producer responsibility system is the duty to report. Two aspects decide who has the duty to register and report annually – thereby having the producer responsibility in the Member State:

1. 1. Type of product
   2. Business’s role in the market

Identify your business

Producer, importer, and distance selling

Legislation covers:

• All producers and importers who wish to sell electronics, batteries, or vehicles in Denmark.
• All producers, importers and other commercial enterprises selling in-scope products in their own name or brand.
• All businesses in other EU Member States or in non-EU countries that sell directly to end-users in Denmark through distance selling or on the internet.

Dealer or distributor

If you buy your electronic products, batteries, or vehicles from a Danish supplier, your business does NOT have producer responsibility and you must not make a registration. In return, you must make sure that the supplier you deal with has taken on their responsibility in Denmark, since otherwise it is not legal to buy their products.