Extended producer responsibility for fishing gear
This page will help you to decide if and how you are covered by an extended producer responsibility for fishing gear. The ambition with the legislation is to reduce the impact of plastic products in the environment.
If your company produces or sells fishing gear in Sweden, you are likely covered by an extended producer responsibility and are obliged to register your company at the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency. Producers must report other information as well. The purpose of an extended producer responsibility for fishing gear is to increase the collection, the reuse, and recycling of fishing gear as well as to reduce litter from fishing gear.
Target group
Companies that professionally produce, import, or sell fishing gear that contains plastic. The page also includes information aimed at producer responsibility organisations and municipalities.
Good to know
The regulation of extended producer responsibility for fishing gear does not cover waste consisting of fishing gear that has been lost at sea or have been littered and then collected in projects financed by public funds. Fishing gear that cannot be easily removed from electrical equipment that is covered by the regulation (2014:1075) on producer responsibility for electrical equipment is also not covered.
Legislation
Swedish Ordinances (in Swedish only)
EU directives
Which companies are covered and what do they need to do?
As a rule, the company that first makes a product available on the market is the producer. If a product is imported into Sweden by one company and sold by another, it is the company that imports the product that is the producer.
Here's a checklist to help you determine if your business counts as a producer.
If you answer ”Yes” to one of the questions, then your company is a producer. If you answer ”No” to all the questions in the chart, your company is not counted as a producer.
| Situation | Producer responsibility | |
|---|---|---|
| Imports fishing gear containing plastic to Sweden (from countries outside the EU). | Yes | No |
| Manufactures fishing gear containing plastic in Sweden. | Yes | No |
| From a country other than Sweden, sells fishing gear containing plastic to an end user in Sweden. | Yes | No |
In summary, all companies affected by producer responsibility for fishing gear need to:
- register and annually report data to the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency
- engage a producer responsibility organisation
- appoint a representative if the company sells fishing gear to a country in the European Economic Area (EEA) other than where it is established.
Register your company
All producers of fishing gear that contain plastic are required to register with the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency.
The reports must be made before fishing gear is released on the Swedish market via the Environmental Protection Agency's e-service before the requirement for notification is introduced.
When making a registration you must provide the following information to the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency:
- The name of the producer.
- Contact details.
- Personal or corporate identification number (if such does not exist – tax registration number or VAT-number).
- How the producer intends to fulfill the requirement to hire or provide himself with a producer responsibility organisation. This information must be submitted from 31 December 2024, but producers who intend to place fishing gear on the market from 1 January 2025 must provide this information from 1 November 2024.
It is the producer's responsibility that the submitted information is up to date.
Appoint a producer responsibility organisation
From 31 December 2024, producers of fishing gear are obliged to engage or provide themselves with a producer responsibility organisation. Producer responsibility organisations exist to make it easier for your company to take its producer responsibility. They help their member companies by managing the waste collection, handling, and recycling of the companies' fishing gear. For this, companies pay a fee.
Remember to complement your company's report to the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency with information about which producer responsibility organisation your company hires no later than 1 November 2024. If the information is missing, an environmental sanction fee may be charged.
Appoint a representative – when selling to another country
A producer representative must be appointed if a producer is established in Sweden and sells fishing gear to another country in the European Economic Area (EES) where the producer is not established. The representative shall be responsible for the producer's obligations in that country.
When a producer is not established in Sweden, a representative who is established in Sweden may be appointed. It is not a requirement to appoint a representative, but if a representative is not appointed, it is the producer who is responsible for fulfilling the obligations in Sweden. If a representative is appointed, it must be appointed by written power of attorney. The representative is then responsible for the producer's obligations of the regulation on extended producer responsibility for fishing gear and report to the Environmental Protection Agency.
The representative in Sweden must register with the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency. You who intend to register as a producer representative must then send an e-mail to the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency, kundtjanst@naturvardsverket.se, with the following information:
- The name of the producer representative, contact details and personal or organisation number, or if such does not exist – tax registration number.
- A copy of the power of attorney.
- The producer’s name, contact details and tax registration number.
- Information about which product you, as a producer representative, will be responsible for.
Then you log into the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency's e-service and add yourself as contact person for the producer you are a representative for.
Report yearly
Producers of fishing gear must report to the Environmental Protection Agency every year, no later than 31 March. The reporting must be done via the Environmental Protection Agency's E-service.
The reporting needs to contain information on how many products the producer has released on the Swedish market during the immediately preceding calendar year and must be stated by weight.
Producer responsibility applies only to fishing gear containing plastic.
What producers should report is the sum in kilograms of:
- the full weight of fishing gear placed on the market consisting solely of plastics
- the full weight of fishing gear consisting of plastic and other materials.
Even those fishing gear that contains only very small amounts of plastic must be included in the reporting of fishing gear that has been placed on the Swedish market.
To ensure the quality of this data, the producer must create routines for internal control.
What is a producer responsibility organisation and what obligations does it have?
From 31 December 2024, producers of fishing gear are obliged to engage or provide themselves with a producer responsibility organisation. The producer responsibility organisation must meet the requirements contained in the regulation on producer responsibility for fishing gear and must register with the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency.
Producer responsibility for fishing gear includes that producer responsibility organisations must:
- collect fishing gear in easily accessible places
- make sure that anyone who wants to leave fishing gear waste to the organisation can do so easily and for free
- effectively contribute to achieving the target for the collection of waste consisting of fishing gear
- collect fishing gear collected by municipalities and, if necessary, coordinate the collection with other producer responsibility organisations for fishing gear
- handle collected fishing gear in a health and environmentally acceptable manner and be responsible for it undergoing a complete treatment procedure in accordance with ch. 15. Section 10 of the Swedish Environmental Code
- have the financial and organisational resources required to fulfill the obligations under the regulation on producer responsibility for fishing gear
- pay the fee to the municipalities that shall cover the municipalities' collection costs of the waste made of fishing gear
- collaborate with other producer responsibility organisations for fishing gear on how costs and revenues for the waste received should be distributed between the organisations
- inform consumers about how to manage fishing gear to reduce the amount that is lost and how to manage it when it is to be thrown away. Consumers must also be informed about the negative environmental effects that fishing gear causes if they are not managed correctly.
Producers must compensate the producer responsibility organisation
Producers must pay compensation to the producer responsibility organisation that is hired. To calculate the compensation, the producer responsibility organisation must consider two things. Partly the amount of fishing gear that the producer releases on the Swedish market and partly the reusability and material recyclability of the fishing gear. To ensure that this is considered, producer responsibility organisations must create routines for internal checks. Routines for internal control must also be created to ensure the quality of the data that producer responsibility organisations must annually submit to the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency and to ensure that the requirements of the EU regulation (1013/2006) on the transport of waste are met.
A producer responsibility organisation must treat all producers equally and without conditions that may discriminate against any producer to enable all producers to achieve the requirement to engage or provide themselves with a producer responsibility organisation.
Register a producer responsibility organisation
Producer responsibility organisations are obliged to register with the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency. From 1 January 2024, a producer responsibility organisation can register with the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency before operations start, 31 December 2024 at the earliest.
The notification must contain the following information:
- Producer responsibility organisation name and address.
- The organisation number of the producer responsibility organisation, or if such does not exist, tax registration number.
- A brief description of the business and how the requirements for collection and waste management of fishing gear, collaboration with other producer responsibility organisations, equal treatment, and compensation from producers to producer responsibility organisations shall be met.
It is the responsibility of the producer responsibility organisation that the submitted information is up to date.
When reporting a producer responsibility organisation to the Environmental Protection Agency, the producer responsibility organisation must make the following information available on its website:
- Who the owner of the producer responsibility organisation is.
- Which producers have engaged the producer responsibility organisation.
- How the compensation that the producers must pay to the producer responsibility organisation is to be calculated, stated in kronor per product sold or per ton of products released on the Swedish market.
- On what grounds the producer responsibility organisation chooses to hire actors to manage waste.
- How the activities of the producer responsibility organisation contribute to reaching the goal of collection.
Goals for waste collection
The goal is that the amount of waste consisting of fishing gear and collected during a calendar year must be at least 20 % of the amount of fishing gear released on the Swedish market during the same calendar year. The goal must be achieved by 2027 at the latest and the calculation is made by weight.
From 31 December 2024, producer responsibility organisations are obliged to effectively contribute to meeting the waste collection target.
If the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency assesses that there is a risk that the target will not be achieved in time, further measures may be necessary.
Definitions
Producer
A producer of fishing gear is defined as one who professionally:
- brings in fishing gear to Sweden,
- manufactures fishing gear in Sweden, or
- from a country other than Sweden sells fishing gear to an end user in Sweden.
The definition of producer does not refer to the person who conducts fishing activities as defined in Article 4.28 of EU Regulation 1380/2013. Producer does not therefore mean someone searching for fish, releasing, deploying, towing, and picking up fishing gear, taking catches on board, transshipment, preservation on board, preparation on board, transfer, placing in cages, fattening, and landing of fish and fishery products.
Fishing gear
Fishing gear refers to objects or gear that contain plastic and which is used in fisheries or aquaculture to locate, capture, or breed marine or freshwater biological resources, or floats on the surface of the water and is used for the purpose of attracting, capturing, or breeding biological resources in sea or fresh water.
Regardless of the amount of plastic content in the fishing gear, it is subject to producer responsibility.
Fishing gear is the equipment that fishermen use when fishing. Almost all equipment used for fishing can be called fishing gear
Fishing gear can be, for example, reels, ropes, hooks, floats, swirls, baits (that is, artificial baits), jigs, harpoons, nets, forks and wire.
Products used in fisheries or aquaculture and products floating on the surface of the water and used for the purpose of attracting, capturing or rearing marine or freshwater biological resources, but not directly used to locate them, are not covered by the definition of fishing gear. Examples of such products are life jackets, wading pants and boats including equipment for these.
Placing on the market
Placing a product on the market means making a product available on the market in a Member State for the first time. Supplying a product means supplying a product for distribution, consumption or use on the market in a Member State in connection with commercial activities, against payment or free of charge.
An offer or agreement is required but the product does not need to have been physically handed over.
Placing a product on the market requires that there be an offer or an agreement (written or oral) between two or more legal or natural persons for a transfer of ownership, possession, or any other right regarding the product in question.
An offer means, for example, online offer, advertising campaigns, e-mails inviting to buy, delivery of quotations, information to buyers and distributors about available products and their price or any other proposal to sell a specific product (which is already manufactured)..
To be considered released on the market, a product must have been manufactured, but a physical handover of the product does not have to have taken place.
A product is considered not to have been placed on the market if it is in the manufacturer's or importer's warehouse and has not been made available for distribution, consumption, or use.
In accordance with the single-use plastic directive, placing on the market in Sweden means that a single-use plastic product is made available on the market in Sweden for the first time. This differs from the definition in the so-called Blue Guide (the Commission's guidance on EU product regulations 2016/C 272/01) where placing on the market is defined as occurring when the product is made available on the Union market for the first time, which means that it is sufficient that the product has been made available for the first time in any by EU member states to be considered to have been placed on the market in Sweden as well.
The EU Commission's FAQ
The Commission has made a compilation of frequent questions and answers regarding the concept of placing on the market in the single-use plastics directive. The document is not adopted or approved by the European Commission and is not to be considered an official position. However, it can be used as support when assessing whether a product has been released on the market or not. You can find the document here:
Plastic
A plastic is defined under the Single Use Plastics Directive as a material consisting of a polymer according to the REACH Regulation, to which additives or other substances may have been added. It can be used as the main structural component of final products. Natural polymers that have not been chemically modified are excluded.
Plastics made from modified natural polymers are covered by the Directive. The same applies to plastics made from bio-based, fossil or synthetic raw materials. Biodegradable plastics and polymer-based rubber articles are also covered by the Directive.
In general, a polymer obtained from an industrial process is defined as a modified polymer even if it occurs naturally in nature. This means that a polymer produced by biosynthesis in synthetic culture and fermentation processes, such as polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHA), is counted as a modified natural polymer.
A polymer that, on the other hand, is produced in nature and then extracted from nature for further processing is counted as a natural polymer. One example is the extraction of cellulose, which is then regenerated into viscose. Viscose and lyocell are therefore excluded from the scope of the Directive.
Clarifications to the definition of plastic in the Directive can be found in the Commission's guidance on single-use plastic products:
Commission guidance on single-use plastic products (europa.eu)
Related guidance
E-service producer responsibility
Companies and organisations affected by producer responsibility can submit (or update) their information to the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency via the e-service for producer responsibility.