Verificering af plastemballagemængden på det danske marked
Summary
The purpose of this report is to verify the quantity of plastics packaging calculated in the Danish survey of the supply of packaging. During the past seven years the Danish Environmental Protection Agency has carried out annual surveys of the packaging supply. In this survey the total supply of packaging is divided into 20 different groups of packaging materials. The calculation of the packaging supply is used to investigate how Denmark complies with the regulations of the EU directive on packaging and packaging waste.
The Association of Plastics Producers in Denmark has raised some doubt about the calculated quantity of plastic packaging. Therefore, this study was undertaken to verify quantity. The work was carried out on the basis of other sources than the statistical data used in the packaging survey.
In all the years the packaging survey has been worked out, the quantity of plastics packaging supply has been calculated to be between 126,000 and 183,000 tonnes per year. The Association of Plastics Producers considers that the quantity is smaller.
The packaging survey makes use of material from Statistics Denmark. Firstly, the supply of empty packaging has been estimated. Secondly, the net import of filled plastics packaging from foreign trade has been estimated. The sum of these two elements gives the total supply of packaging in Denmark.
To verify the supply of plastics packaging the following sources were used:
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Breaking down the use of plastics packaging on product groups |
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Survey of the production volumes within the Danish manufacturers
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Survey of the sale of products in plastics packaging in a big grocery retail chain |
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Survey of contents of plastics in the waste stream |
By using these four other sources, the quantity of plastics packaging was re-calculated. All four sources indicate that the quantity found in the packaging survey has been too high. It is mainly the quantity of plastics sales packaging that must be reduced. Therefore, this quantity has been reduced by 20,000 tonnes in 1999 – corresponding to app. 12%.
On the basis of this study, the quantity of plastics packaging for 1999 must be reduced from the first calculated 173,000 tonnes to 153,000 tonnes. Following this reduction the supply quantity of plastics packaging in the previous year was lowered. Based on the new data structure the quantity of plastics packaging for year 2000 has been estimated to be 157,000 tonnes.