Objectives and obligations of the SUP Directive
The aim of the EU Single Use Plastics (SUP) Directive 2019/904/EU is to reduce the environmental impact of certain SUP products, promote the circular economy and harmonise product regulation in the EU’s internal market.
The Directive’s obligations for companies with producer responsibility
- reducing the consumption of SUP beverage cups and food containers
- product requirements for SUP beverage containers and separate collection of SUP beverage bottles
- labelling requirements for certain SUP products
- extended producer responsibility for municipal SUP cleaning costs and consumer education
- reporting of SUP products.
The producer of SUP packaging is:
- a Finnish company that packs its products in a SUP package or imports a product packaged in a SUP package to Finland
- a company established abroad that sells products packaged in a SUP package as distance selling to end users in Finland.
The producer of SUP service packaging (packaging at the point of sale) and farmer’s packaging (untreated farm products) is the Finnish manufacturer or importer of the packaging.
SUP fees
The SUP fees cover the compensation paid to municipalities for cleaning up SUP packaging. In addition, the fees include communication on litter prevention and administrative costs.
- Municipalities notify the Finnish Supervisory Agency of their SUP cleaning costs, on the basis of which the producer organisations decide on the fees for each SUP packaging group.
- Companies report their SUP packaging to Finnish Packaging Recycling RINKI Ltd, which invoices companies according to packaging volumes.