1. Summary

The UN negotiations for a global plastic treaty are ongoing with a mandate to address the full life cycle of plastic products. There is a clear need for improved data on plastic material flows to design effective policies and measure their impact. The Nordic Council of Ministers have financed this project, Better and harmonized statistics on plastic material flows to support Nordic countries in developing best practices for creating national inventories of plastics. By bringing together technical experts from statistics bureaus, customs offices, and environmental agencies in the Nordic countries – this project aims to identify the most important statistical information to include in national inventories and critical knowledge gaps that need to be overcome in data collection and quality.

The group of technical experts collaborated to list nine clear challenges when creating national plastic inventories (not ranked):

Waste exports information need
Waste export control and inspection
Waste export end-of-life fates
Product plastic shares, additives and polymers
Lacking data on large waste sources and therefore overall plastic waste generation.
Lack of frequently updated data on plastic products and waste
Lack of data to enable closed loop recycling
End of life fates
Double counting semi-finished/finished products

Potential solutions include close follow-up of the implementation of the new waste shipment regulation with active involvement to guide technical standards, capacity building and technical gear for surveillance officers and searchable waste shipment documentation. The Nordic countries can actively collaborate with UNITAR to further develop the Plastic KEYs work that help harmonize plastic products and waste. The technical experts also saw potential in forming a Nordic working group to standardize methods for waste analysis to get better insight into large waste streams like the construction sector and industry. Public-private collaboration along with reporting requirements can also help current manual reporting through standards for data formats and automated data flows.

Armed with more detailed knowledge about the content and composition of plastic products and waste, and with harmonized statistical categories, codes and definitions, the UN negotiations can more precisely target the critical areas for policy development and reduce harmful and mismanaged plastics.

KeyTake-backs

Main challenges	Barriers	Suggested solutions
Waste export (information need)	Insufficient HS codes and searchable accessibility to annex 7 information for statistical and surveillance purposes.	Amended in new regulation of waste shipment, however it is crucial (for a Nordic custom-authorities working group) to closely follow up the implementation to ensure that common digital solutions enable sufficient searchable information and efficient, structural data.
Waste export (control and inspection)	lack of standardized capacity, knowledge, and contents of supervisions of waste shipments.	Amended in new regulation of waste shipment, however it is crucial (for a Nordic custom-authorities working group) to closely follow up the implementation to ensure increased knowledge and capacity on and standards for supervision. The working group should also ensure collaboration within the EEA/EU on technology investments (Scanners, weights and AI)
Waste export (end-of-life-fates)	Unsatisfying content control of waste shipments out of the EEA/EU	Partly addressed through the new regulation of waste shipment, however it is crucial (for a Nordic custom-authorities working group) to closely follow up the implementation and ensure that experiences from the frontline and unfortunate deviations are addressed by measures or new underlying legal acts.
Product shares, additives, and polymers	Insufficient information and large variations in assumptions on products plastic shares, additives, and polymers.	Addressed in UNITARs work on Plastic-KEYs on finished products (plastic and plastic containing products), however the Nordic countries can assist in developing the keys in general and Nordic-specific adaptations.
Lack of frequently updated data on plastic products and waste	Insufficient incentives to report on desired format and constraints on data collection in European Statistics Code of Practice	Reporting requirements and industry initiatives for software integrations and agreeing on standard reporting format
Enabling closed-loop recycling	Insufficient information and link between supply and demand. Insufficient access to quality feedstock, infrastructure for sorting and recycle technology.	Linking feedstock of plastic waste, secondary raw material, and producers. Increasing economic incentives for increased flow throughout the value chain, from waste to recycled material into products designed for recycling.
End of life fates	Difficult and expensive to undertake comprehensive and frequent mapping, as well as harmonised recycling rates of different waste streams	Strengthening reporting on waste to controlled waste treatment. Mismanaged waste can be calculated as residual in the material flow.
Double-counting semi-finished/finished products.	Lacking guide on common methodology to use CN codes to separate semi-finished and finished products.	1) Only include either primary plastics or finished products or 2) create an international standard for instance based on the methodology followed by Norway and Denmark