Is your company covered by producer responsibility? Then it is important that you register your company in the Danish producer responsibility register with Dansk Producentansvar (DPA) no later than 31^st of August and register your company’s expected volumes of accessible packaging in 2024.

Is your company covered by producer responsibility?

If your company makes packaging or refilled packaging available on the Danish market, your company is generally subject to producer responsibility for your packaging.

When a company makes packaging available on the Danish market, it means that the company markets/offers packaging or already packaged products to other companies or directly to the consumer against or without payment.

The company, manufacturer, importer or distributor that makes packaging or refilled packaging available for the first time is a producer and thus covered by producer responsibility. This means that if your company:

1. manufacture or have transport, reusable, primary production or service packaging manufactured or filled in your own name or trademark, you have producer responsibility. This means, for example, that if you manufacture or import transport packaging that is resold to companies that use the packaging, you are responsible unless you have manufactured the packaging in their name.2. is a supplier who provides transport, reusable, primary production, service, sales or multipack packaging to microenterprises (even if they are manufactured in the name of the microenterprise), you have producer responsibility. This means, for example, that if you manufacture service packaging for a microbusiness, you have producer responsibility even if you have manufactured the packaging in the name of the microbusiness.3. is established outside Denmark, you will have producer responsibility if you make packaging or refilled packaging available via remote sales directly to the end user in Denmark.

Producer responsibility means that your company is responsible for your company’s packaging when it becomes waste and ends up in either private or other companies’ bins. This responsibility means that your company must pay for the management of packaging waste in the future. However, your company will only have to pay fees for the management of your packaging from 2025 onwards.

You can take a test here to find out if your company is subject by producer responsibility.

What is packaging?

Packaging constitutes all products of any kind and material used for protection, packing, handling, delivery from the manufacturer to the user or consumer. The same applies to packaging used to present the product.

The producer responsibility for packaging includes primary (sales packaging), secondary (multipack packaging) and tertiary packaging (transport packaging).

If you’re unsure whether your packaging is covered by producer responsibility, you can take a test here to find out if each individual packaging is covered by producer responsibility.  

New packaging reporting requirements and packaging waste fees

 Companies have until 31 August 2024 to register in the Danish producer responsibility register with Dansk Producentansvar (DPA). You can register your company here. In connection with registration, the company must pay a start-up fee of DKK 1,000.00. If the company is already registered for other producer responsibilities, the fee is DKK 500.00.

When you need to register your company, you must:

• Use the company’s My Business ID (if your company is not Danish, you must register as a user with DPA)
• Access the producer responsibility register (read the guide here).
• Register your company’s contact person for producer responsibility
• Register data about your product volumes in kg.

In addition, it is important that you report realistic estimates for the expected 2024 volumes made available. The expected 2024 volumes will be used to set up the future packaging waste management system. When the producer responsibility is fully implemented on 1 October 2025, it will be actual realised packaging volumes that the company must register.

Companies will have to pay fees for the management of packaging waste from 2025. The actual final reported 2025 volumes will form the basis for how much companies will have to pay for the management of their share of the total amount of packaging waste in Denmark in 2025.

Who has the producer responsibility?

The company that makes the packaging/refilled packaging available for the first time on the Danish market is generally the one with the producer responsibility. Here are some examples:

–       If company A from Denmark sells cardboard boxes for packaging to company B, company A will generally have producer responsibility.

• If company A from Denmark imports cardboard boxes for packaging from abroad and then resells the cardboard boxes, company A will have producer responsibility.
• If a micro-business has packaging/refilled packaging designed/manufactured under its own name/trademark, the company that makes the packaging/refilled packaging available for the first time has producer responsibility. This can be the microbusiness itself if they import the packaging/refilled packaging from abroad.

Foreign companies can only receive producer responsibility if they sell packaging/refills for the first time on the Danish market directly to an end user (consumer/company).

• If a foreign webshop sells packaging/refilled packaging for the first time in Denmark to a Danish end user, the webshop will have producer responsibility.
• If a Danish company removes transport packaging that it has received from a foreign company, the Danish company becomes the end user of the packaging and the foreign company has producer responsibility.

Especially when it comes to repackaging:

• For example, if a foreign company sells packaged products to Danish company A via online sales and Danish company A removes the packaging because the products need to be repackaged, Danish company A becomes the end user of the packaging, and the foreign company will in this case have producer responsibility.
• If Danish company A sells the repackaged products with new packaging to Danish company B, company A will have producer responsibility for the new packaging if they make the packaging available on the Danish market for the first time.

The de minimis limit

A de minimis limit of 8 tons of packaging per year has been introduced.

If your company provides less than 8 tons of packaging per year, your company is still subject to the registration and reporting obligation and is obliged to pay fees for the packaging waste, but your company can only report the total expected amount.

All businesses are therefore subject to the registration and reporting obligation, even if your business is subject to the de minimis threshold.

The rules are the same in the EU

The rules on producer responsibility are basically the same in all EU countries and follow the principles of national registration and reporting obligations for companies that manufacture or import packaging or packaged products.

If your company makes packaging or refilled packaging available in other EU countries, the packaging must be registered and reported in that EU country by the company that has producer responsibility.

If you have questions about registration, reporting etc. in the other countries’ producer responsibility registers, we must refer you to the authorities/organisations that oversee the producer responsibility rules in those countries. Here is a list of the other countries’ producer responsibility registers.

If your company has packaging that is covered by producer responsibility in Denmark, the company must register and report in the Danish producer responsibility register. If the company also exports packaging to end users in other EU/EEA countries, the company must also register that they sell packaging – via distance selling – to other EU/EEA countries in the Danish producer responsibility register. The quantities sold abroad do not need to be reported in the Danish producer responsibility register.

If your Danish company only exports packaging or refilled packaging abroad, there is no producer responsibility in Denmark, as the Danish company does not make the packaging available on the Danish market.

More rules to be presented in 2025 

As the EU regulation on packaging and packaging waste is implemented in Denmark, more rules for companies’ producer responsibility for packaging will be presented in 2025.

We will of course keep you updated on the development of producer responsibility.

Contact

If you need advice or guidance on producer responsibility for packaging, contact our legal experts.

Your corporate team at LEAD Rödl & Partner

Alexandra Huber
Attorney-at-law, partner
T. +45 5116 7494
E. alexandra.huber@lead-roedl.dk

Sophie Amalie Drejer Jensen
Attorney-at-law
T. +45 2112 1082
E. sophie.drejer@lead-roedl.dk