ANNUAL REPORT 2020 Infinitum Owns and Manages the Norwegian Deposit Return Scheme (DRS)
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
ANNUAL REPORT 2020 Infinitum owns and manages the Norwegian deposit return scheme (DRS). Our aim is for all DRS-labelled bottles and cans to be returned. We are working to make the return process itself both efficient and environmentally friendly. Our ambition is for all bottles and cans to be recycled and turned into new high-quality products. The deposit return scheme has a significant impact on the environment. In 2020, Infinitum achieved a record deposit return rate of 92% and a total collection rate of 98%. All returns are recycled, and Norway is a role model for other countries. Choosing products with the DRS label and returning all drink containers is one of the easiest and most important things we can all do for the environment, as valuable materials are reused time and again. Infinitum Annual Report 2020 Contents 6 40 Senseless packaging tax Kolonial offers Covid-friendly returns collection 8 More and better measures needed 42 Reverse vending machine challenger 12 grows in Norway “Time that Norway became a driving force for a circular economy” 44 Pandemic fails to stop international 16 deposit return dream Accounting Norway wants green tax change 46 “We recycle people!” 18 First-rate logistics 48 “Plastic deposit bottles are an eco winner” 20 Ready for spring melt 50 A circular deposit return system 24 Thousands of bottles and cans rescued 52 during X Games The deposit return story 28 54 2020 – a busy year and a special one Board of Directors and owners 32 56 From local to national Statistics for 2020 36 58 Family factories with short decision lines Financial statements 38 60 Is the ‘Norwegian business’ here to stay? Contact 4 5 Infinitum Annual Report 2020 Senseless packaging tax The coronavirus pandemic ‘Grunnavgift’ is a specifically Norwegian If the motive of protecting jobs is left that struck in 2020 tax on drinks packaging that “is not re- out of the equation and ‘Grunnavgift’ is used in its original form”. The tax is NOK seen purely as a tax for limiting the use produced a new deposit 1.27 plus VAT for every single bottle of recyclable packaging, it stands out as return record and clearly and can, and was originally introduced Norway’s strangest environmental levy. showed that it is high time to protect workers who washed reusable For one thing, it is unreasonably high: bottles. Now it is doing nothing but harm. Imposing NOK 1.27 plus VAT in tax on for the packaging tax to a can weighing 14.5 grams means that be removed. Border trade down by 88 percent ‘Grunnavgift’ is more than NOK 100 per Sweden does not have a packaging tax, kilo, or NOK 100,000 per tonne. On top which is largely what makes beer, soda of which, no other materials on the and water good ‘loss leaders’ for border Norwegian market are recycled into the trade. Many people have wondered how same product to such a large extent. extensive this trade is, and the border closures resulting from Covid-19 provided Time for a rethink new answers, with the number of cans When the packaging tax was introduced, and bottles sold in Norway increasing by it was believed that washing bottles and a massive 243,546,033 units, up 18.7% transporting soda and beer crates around on 2019. According to Statistics Norway, the country was better than crushing border trade declined by more than and recycling. Now we know that the NOK 14 billion, even though the border most eco-friendly option is mechanical was not closed for the entire year. recycling so that the materials can be used time and again in new cans or bottles. ‘Grunnavgift’ no longer protects workers The tax is therefore completely outdated. as intended, but is helping to drive jobs out of the country. For everyone in the The drinks manufacturers, retailers and grocery trade on the Norwegian side the government benefited enormously of the border, 2020 was a bumper year, from increased sales when closed borders and the government collected more tax, limited the impact of the packaging tax. including on sugar and alcohol. We collected more than ever before, and more than any other country, and all Closure produced deposit return the plastic and aluminium was given a new record lease of life. Together, the retail impact Closed borders also contributed to the and environmental impact are good highest deposit return rate ever. A massive reasons for rethinking ‘Grunnavgift’. 92% of all cans and bottles were returned. A Norwegian deposit on all the packaging in the home motivates people more to do what we ask and return everything. Without Kjell Olav Maldum ‘Grunnavgift’, the deposit return rate would Managing Director probably be as high or higher every year. 6 7 Infinitum Annual Report 2020 More and better measures needed The use of recycled plastic must be increased, and Mepex has been looking at measures that will help to achieve this. “The most important measures are new requirements for local authorities and businesses, greater producer responsibility and a material tax on virgin plastic,” says Managing Director Frode Syversen. Mepex is an environmental consultancy deposit return scheme, which has helped plastic, the three most important of which with broad expertise in waste to ensure good material quality,” Frode are plastic sorting requirements for local management and recycling. Through the Syversen, Managing Director of Mepex, authorities and businesses, improvement ‘Plastsamarbeidet’ partnership and several explains. and extension of the producer other projects, Mepex is working with responsibility regulations, and a material the Norwegian Retailers’ Environment Achieving a closed loop and circular tax on virgin plastic. Fund and Norner to look at measures economy for plastic will require measures for increasing the use of recycled plastic. in different parts of the value chain, “It is important to find the right balance The goal is to help Norway achieve and the authorities also have an important between producer responsibility and 50 percent material recycling for all plastic role to play. requirements for the local government waste by 2025. sector and private businesses: those “It is the authorities who largely hold the who generate the plastic waste. “We have to think more about what is put key to finding a suitable raft of measures. The local government sector must be on the market, design products so that Time is running out if we are to achieve subject to sorting requirements and they can be recycled, use pricing measures 50 percent material recycling for all plastic invest in capacity, while the producers to ensure materials that are less suitable waste by 2025,” says Syversen. must be required to help foot the bill,” for recycling cost more, and think in terms says Syversen. of a closed loop for more product groups. Producer responsibility and tax Infinitum has led the way by having strict Mepex has outlined eight measures that According to Syversen, there is a good requirements for products joining the would help to increase the use of recycled producer responsibility scheme for plastic 8 9 Infinitum Annual Report 2020 “Good systems and recycling are what should be ‘rewarded’, and energy recovery does not contribute to either.” Frode Syversen, Managing Director of Mepex drinks packaging, but nothing adequate “The politicians have to consider where Deposit cans in general waste go into the for plastic in general as things stand. they are going to put the tax in the value incinerator, with the majority coming chain. It would also be possible to have a back out in the ash. They are sorted and “The producer responsibility scheme for tax in two places: a tax on virgin plastic sent for material recovery, but the quality drinks packaging is not enough in itself, entering the value chain and a carbon tax is poorer,” he explains. however. The tax is also crucial, with the on fossil-based plastic that is incinerated,” drinks industry being motivated to reduce says Syversen. Both count as material recovery, while the environmental levy by collecting as plastic bottles incinerated together with much as possible. There is every indication Ten years of collaboration general waste count as energy recovery. that the politicians are considering Mepex and Infinitum have been As the rules stand, both material recovery some form of plastic tax in order to put collaborating for a long time. Mepex has and energy recovery qualify for an a price on all the environmental and been keeping track of deposit packaging environmental levy rebate. Everything is climate problems that plastic causes. It that does not come in through reverse credited as recovered, with a correction is important that a new tax should not vending machines, but is discarded in for actual energy recovery. damage Norwegian business, something the form of plastic, metal or general that the environmental levy on drinks has waste. Mepex does this by carrying out “Both we at Mepex and Infinitum have not done. A plastic tax should therefore waste analyses and random sampling in proposed that energy recovery should not be carefully evaluated and Europe should municipalities throughout Norway. By count, and we have long believed that the arrive at a joint solution,” says Syversen. collecting data on deposit packaging per authorities would change the drink tax tonne of waste from a large number of rules, but so far in vain. Good systems and He believes that, in order to take care of municipalities, Mepex is able to estimate recycling are what should be ‘rewarded’, environmental problems, any tax that is average key figures for the different waste and energy recovery does not contribute introduced will have a lot in common types for the country as a whole.