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The National Waste Plan and the Waste Prevention Program

  • Published on December 17, 2019

The National Waste Plan and the Waste Prevention Program provide an overview of the targets, instruments and measures introduced in Sweden to prevent waste and to achieve a more resource-efficient and non-toxic waste management in accordance with the waste hierarchy. It will serve as support in the work of implementing the measures that contribute to achieving the objectives related to waste management and waste prevention. The plan and the program do not describe all work in Sweden concerning circular economics and resource-efficiency but focuses on the parts related to waste and waste prevention.

The National Waste Plan and Waste Prevention Program 2018–2023 focuses on describing the direction that is politically determined through objectives, instruments and actions as well as on-going work and analysis of the current situation.

In order to achieve a circular economy, new technologies, new innovative products and services, sustainable and resource-efficient business models and a changing consumer behavior are required. There is a need of a combina­tion of different types of instruments and measures, as well as cooperation between different stakeholders and sectors.

The long-term goal is a circular economy in which waste will not, in principle, arise, and society will retain its resources in circulation or return them into nature’s own cycles in a sustainable way. The products should be designed to be durable, repairable and possible to reuse and finally recycled. Particularly hazardous substances should be phased out of the circuits. An important starting point of the Swedish work for non-toxic and resource-efficient circuits is that especially hazardous substances should not be used in new products and that the use of other hazardous substances should be reduced as far as possible.

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