Sweden

Contacts
 Margareta Stackerund
Swedish Environmental Protection Agency
S-10648 Stockholm
Sweden
telefon: +46-8-6981618
fax: +46-8-6981222

A. The Rise and Development of the System

Sweden has dealt with the PRTR establishment from early 90's . The EPA ( the Environmental Protection Agency ) presented proposal of a system at the OECD seminary in 1994; and a pilot study was run in the same year. Report includes information of the present state of major questions discussion and pilot study results.

The pilot study findings:

  • voluntary reporting doesn't function if requirements for reporters are of greater spectrum;
  • mutual understanding among single system participants ( reporters, managers and users ) is necessary; then a "gentlemen atmosphere" will be created and the subjects can believe each another;
  • reports must be easy to write
  • reporters prefer the electronic form of reporting and they are going to use the experts' help when writing reports;
  • small- and middle-sized enterprises especially need the above mentioned experts' help;
  • firms using mixtures of pollutants have problems with single compounds identification.

    B. The Structure of the System

    There are two possibilities how to solve the problem of institutional insurance of the whole system:

  • The EPA collects data directly from the enterprises;
  • The EPA makes agreements of data collecting and preparing with regional offices

    The pilot study included 100 subjects - potential reporters - which had been chosen as an representative model of Sweden. 10 big companies, 45 middle-sized and 45 small-sized firms were among those 100 subjects. The study showed problems with reporting which arise in small- and middle-sized firms. It verified the need of large assistance by fulfilling the duty of reporting. Another finding was that 90% of emissions come from the biggest companies. The criteria for reporters were not assessed yet ( e.g. size of the company and list of in the report included sectors ).

    28 substances were followed in the pilot study ( e.g. chlorinated dissolvent, brominated burn retards , heavy metals, chlorinated paraffin ). These substances were chosen from the national program for risk reduction with the help of the Third Nordsea Conference list and the Baltic Sea Convention. The EPA wants to create list of 50 substances. A special attention will be paid for the Swedish products register. A narrow group of substances will be delimitated for each industry branch to simplify reporting data ( e.g. 4 substances will be classed with textile industry ).

    The pilot study monitored air- and water-pollution, waste destruction, releases into sewage, transfers to tips and "releases" into products.