Robust and comparable data on plastic flows is essential for circular economy strategies and for reporting under the upcoming UN plastics treaty. Yet, current national statistics in the Nordics remain fragmented and relying on differing assumptions, scopes, and methods that undermine inter-regional comparability.
To support the need for comparable national statistical inventories, the United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR) is developing a plastic inventory model. It leverages existing trade and production statistics to estimate how much plastic is put on the market and how much becomes waste. This approach offers a scalable, transparent method which enable harmonised and repeatable assessments.
This report applies the pilot version of the UNITAR model (as of spring 2025) to Nordic data to explore the model's performance in practice. In addition, the report provides a focused review of how plastic shares are currently estimated in Nordic waste statistics—an area that remains highly variable across countries and largely dependent on default assumptions or one-off studies.
The results show that the UNITAR model can provide a harmonised baseline for internationally comparable plastic statistics. Although the current version covers only 35–40% of the trade (HS) and production (CPC) identified in UNITAR’s guideline, it reveals broadly consistent trends in plastic put-on-market (POM) across countries—most notably the dominance of packaging.
By applying product-specific lifetimes to products entering the market (POM), the model also simulates when plastic products become waste. This enables time-distributed insights that support sector-specific policy and infrastructure planning. However, limited code coverage, reliance on generic plastic-content factors, and the presence of country-specific data outliers currently constrain the model’s accuracy and comparability across the Nordic countries.
The UNITAR model shows conceptual potential, but four actions are crucial for reliable future application in the Nordics:
Validate input data systematically
Establish robust quality control routines for trade and production data to ensure consistency and credibility across national datasets.
Review and adapt plastic-content factors to local conditions
Review and recalibrate product-specific plastic shares where needed to reflect local production and consumption patterns.
Strengthen coordination capacity within key organisations
Ensure that statistical and environmental authorities–together with other key actors–have the capacity to jointly refine assumptions and manage model updates.
Develop joint Nordic model governance
Create a shared structure for ownership, maintenance and practical use of the model.
With these steps, the Nordic region can assist in the development of internationally comparable and policy-relevant plastic statistics to help shape international standards for plastic monitoring.