The autumn has been a busy season in terms of producer responsibility activities. In recent months, Sumi has attended a lot of events and trade fairs and, most importantly, met with many customers, i.e. producers. For us at Sumi, it is important to know how we can best provide added value to producers in matters related to producer responsibility and thereby offer better and more extensive services. The benefit of the producers is the most essential thing for Sumi.
We will continue development efforts and innovations across the entire value chain of packaging producer responsibility. We have already completed some projects and communicated about them. We initiated chemical recycling in cooperation with Wastewise and will continue the development to increase the chemical recycling of plastic packaging streams that are not suited to mechanical recycling. We also began using artificial intelligence on our website among the first parties in the producer responsibility sector and as one of the first companies in Finland to use artificial intelligence for searches on the website. It is our hope for all parties operating in the producer responsibility field to adopt our website as a databank on information related to producer responsibility. Earlier on, we launched the Sumppu-ecopoints for events and KELPO recyclability calculator for plastic packaging. We will provide information about our next projects to be completed in the near future.
Once Sumi’s annual general meeting decided in the spring of 2022 that the company will continue as an independent producer responsibility organisation, the process began for Sumi to apply for entry in the producer register as a producer responsibility organisation for all packaging materials. The application process was long and involved a variety of external challenges, but the decision was gained at the beginning of May 2023. This created genuine competition in the producer responsibility sector, which was realized in the recycling fees of both producer responsibility organisations. The fees were released at the end of October. Overall, the recycling fees of both producer responsibility organisations decreased even though there will be significant additional costs in 2024. The price drop is beneficial to producers which we aim to support and assist. In other words, a competitive situation is preferrable to a monopoly.
The work continues, and we are striving for even better performance than before!
I would also like to thank Peter for his years at Sumi and wish him relaxing retirement days.