Svenska avfallsabonnemang - En studie om utformning av avfallsabonnemang och prissättning som incitament

Sammanfattning: Recycling reduces the need for new raw materials and greenhouse gas emissions. In addition, the new waste legislation from the EU and the Swedish government imposes higher recycling requirements on Swedish municipalities. Starting from January 1, 2024, it will be mandatory for all EU member states to separately collect food waste through curbside collection. The Swedish government has also decided that, by January 1, 2027, municipalities must provide curbside collection of packages made of paper, plastic, metal and colored and uncolored glass. To simplify this transition, the municipalities can already direct households towards recycling programs that meet the new legislation requirements by using incentives. This study aimed to investigate the current state of Swedish municipalities’ recycling programs for curbside collection. Additionally, the study examined if pricing as an economic incentive works to influence households’ recycling program choices. To investigate this, recycling programs from 50 randomly selected Swedish municipalities were summarized. Data was collected by reviewing the municipalities’ current waste tariff and by requesting information from the municipalities. The collected data included pricing model, price of recycling program, number of waste fractions, sorting technique and the recycling programs’ distribution among households. The study showed that most of the municipalities that were investigated currently offer recycling programs that don’t comply with the new legislation. About half, 46 percent, of the municipalities offer recycling programs which don’t sort out food waste and a high proportion, 70 percent, of the municipalities lack recycling programs with packaging sorting. Pricing as an economic incentive to encourage households to choose recycling programs with sorting of more fractions is widespread in Sweden. The study showed that pricing and households’ recycling program choices are strongly interlinked, which implies that pricing as an economic incentive is effective.