Single-use plastic

Public cleansing

In Denmark, public cleansing is primarily done by local authorities, the Danish Road Directorate, and the Danish Nature Agency. This covers collection, clean-up, and sweeping of littered waste as well as collection from public waste receptacles.

How much and how often public cleansing is carried out varies much. By far most of the public cleansing task is carried out on concrete hotspots with many visitors. This may be pedestrian streets, squares, parks, rest areas, and motorway ramps, along with

Responsibility for cleaning up litter

Much of the waste that is collected in public waste receptacles or littered in public areas consists of so-called single-use plastic.

The Single-Use Plastics Directive (also called SUP Directive) imposes on companies producing or importing single-use plastic products a so-called producer responsibility. The producer responsibility applies to the above product types and covers a financial responsibility for cleaning up litter.

This means that if you put this type of products on the market you must finance a share of the costs for public cleansing, collection, and disposal.

The financing of your responsibility for cleaning up litter is based on the quantity of products put on the market and a proportionate share of the total costs of public cleansing.

Yes, the following products are already subjected to a sales ban as there are substitution options:

• Cutlery (forks, knives, spoons, chopsticks)
• Plates
• Straws and cotton bud sticks (with the exception of those that are used with active implantable medical devices or other medical devices)
• Beverage stirrers
• Sticks to be attached to and to support balloons, except balloons for industrial or other professional uses and applications that are not distributed to consumers, including the mechanisms of such sticks
• Food containers made from expanded polystyrene (EPS) also called foam plastic or thermoplastic (i.e. styrofoam boxes with or without a lid) for fast food or other meal ready for immediate consumption that is typically consumed from the receptacle or is ready to be consumed without any further preparation
• Products manufactured from oxo-degradable plastic
• Beverage containers made of expanded polystyrene (EPS) also called foam plastic or thermoplastic, including their caps and lids
• Cups for beverages made of expanded polystyrene (EPS) also called foam plastic or thermoplastic, including their caps and lids

Products that cannot yet be substituted by better alternatives are subjected to restrictions on placing on the market in the form of targets for consumption reduction. The purpose is to promote innovation and product development of better alternatives.

In the EU, a number of standard pictograms in all languages have been created that must be placed on certain product groups for them to be put on the market legally.

For single-use plastic products the marking shows a dead (sea) turtle together with the product in question, accompanied by the wording “Plastic in (product)”. The message is that plastics, including microplastics, are harmful to nature and the environment.

Read about producer responsibility and product marking

Registration

Companies putting single-use plastic products or filled single-use plastic products on the Danish market must be registered in a national producer register. In Denmark, this register is administered by DPA. For existing producers and importers registration must be made no later than 17 December 2024.

Reporting and payment

Each quarter of a year, registered companies report quantities of single-use plastic products put on the market broken down on categories. The first reporting to DPA covers quantities put on the market for the first quarter of 2025. These quantities must be reported in the producer register no later than 10 April 2025.

In 2025, producers registered in the producer register will be charged with an annual fee for DPA to cover DPA’s administrative costs. At the present time, the magnitude of the fee is not known, and neither is the timing of the levy.

Financial responsibility for cleaning up litter

By contrast to existing producer responsibility fields under which affected companies have the responsibility for taking back end-of-life products in view of preparing them for recycling into new products, producers of single-use plastic products have a so-called responsibility for cleaning up litter.

Article 8 of the Single-Use Plastics Directive describes the cleaning task as follows:

• ”[…] costs of waste collection for those products that are discarded in public collection systems, including the infrastructure and its operation, and the subsequent transport and treatment of that waste.”
• “The costs may include the setting up of specific infrastructure for the waste collection for those products, such as appropriate waste receptacles in common litter hotspots.”
• “The costs of cleaning up litter shall be limited to activities undertaken by public authorities or on their behalf.”

If you are the first one putting single-use plastic products or filled single-use plastic products on the Danish market, in general, you are subject to producer responsibility for your single-use plastic product. In Denmark, this comes as a requirement for having a Danish CVR number. However, for instance distance selling by a foreign company directly to end-users in Denmark will also trigger producer responsibility. An EU/EEC company must appoint a so-called authorised representative with a Danish CVR number to assume the EU/EEC company’s producer responsibility. This authorised representative must register in line with producers in the Danish producer register.

Producer responsibility following the product

When a producer or an importer in Denmark delivers a product to a distributor or an end-user for the first time, this product is considered as being put on the market. The physical delivery of a product is not needed for it to be considered as being put on the market. At the conclusion of an agreement on delivery of an imported product or a product produced in Denmark the producer responsibility and the duty of registration will take effect.

How does the producer responsibility affect you?

If you are subject to producer responsibility for single-use plastic products, you must register your company in the producer register. Furthermore, you must report every quarter of a year the quantities that you have made available on the market in Denmark.

The question of who must register depends on your selling technique and whether you are established in Denmark, see more below.

If you have a Danish CVR number, you must make the registration yourself. If you are established in another EU/EEC country and sell your products for instance through internet trade to end-users in Denmark, you must appoint a Danish company as your authorised representative (AR).