In Sweden, the government considers the country has come to a point where it is not necessary to tax single-use plastic bags anymore. At the same time, the budget for the ministry of environment is set to decrease by 1.3%.
Sweden will likely abolish its tax on plastic bags in November 2024. The government considers Swedes almost don’t use them anymore, even though it’s unsure how they will behave without the tax.
The government announced the change on September 13, nearly two years after the tax, which sparked a lot of debates about its efficiency, was implemented.
But for the government’s minority coalition, a tax on plastic carrier bags “is not deemed necessary” anymore for “combating and preventing environmental degradation” and has been removed from the budget forecasts for the next three years.
The tax was introduced in 2020 to achieve the European Union’s consumption reduction target of lightweight plastic carrier bags — 15–50 micrometers thick — used per person per year.
The move was also approved by the Sweden Democrats, which the government needs to have a majority in Parliament.
77% reduction in single-use plastic bags in three years
In the Plastic Bag directive, E.U. member States need to ensure there are less than 40 lightweight plastic carrier bags, the ones which are supplied to consumers at a point of sale and the most widely used, per person per year by the end of 2025.
Before the law passed, Sweden used 74 plastic bags, or equivalent in weight, per person in 2019, according to the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency.
For the government agency, the tax was the decisive factor in the reduction as making plastic bags more costly quickly accelerated the decrease in use. Many of the supermarkets increased the price of a regular plastic bag at the checkout counter from three to seven Swedish crowns (27 to 63 cents).
In 2022, that number decreased to 17 lightweight plastic bags per person per year, a 77% decrease in three years.
So, it made Swedish officials consider the tax useless now and that people definitely adopted new habits so that they would not increase their single-use plastic bags in the future.
“We are convinced that the Swedish people use plastic bags wisely in their everyday life and that there is no purpose in making them extra expensive,” said Environment Minister Romina Pourmokhtari and a member of the Liberals, the political party that initiated the tax.
But in total, Sweden still used 218 million plastic bags in 2022, with thin bags accounting for 81 percent of the total (thick plastic bags such as ones used in clothing stores account for 11 million bags).
Svensk Handel (Swedish Trade Federation), the business and employers’ association in the trade and commerce sector, welcomed the government’s announcement. Martin Kits, the head of business policy at the Swedish Trade Federation, even argues that the plastic bag tax has “achieved no environmental or climate gains” and describes the tax as political greenwashing.
The tax was initially estimated to bring around 2 billion kronor (181 million dollars) to the treasury annually. According to the budget released on September 20, tax revenue will decrease by 650 million crowns (59 million dollars) per year by abolishing the tax on plastic carrier bags.
Budget cuts affecting the ministry of environment
Compared to the central government’s estimated revenue for 2024 of 1,324 billion crowns (120 billion dollars), the plastic bag tax accounts for 0,05% of the administration revenue.
Even the opposition Green Party has moderately singled out the end of this measure, more focused on the larger budget changes they deemed negative for the environment and social welfare.
The end of the plastic bag tax is indeed part of broader reforms because “Sweden is in an economic winter,” the government argues. Therefore, it prioritizes “combating inflation, assisting households and the welfare system, and strengthening the judicial system and defense.” The government will cut 39 billion crowns (3.5 million dollars), a 2.9% decrease, to the budget in 2024.
It plans to reduce taxes on petrol and diesel, which will decrease the administration revenue by 5.65 billion crowns (511 million dollars) in 2024.
For the Green Party, the budget presented by Finance Minister Elisabeth Svantesson is “night-black” for the climate policy, and the inflation-relief tax cuts will benefit the richer people.
Funding for climate and environment will be reduced by 259 million crowns (23.4 million dollars) next year, or ‑1.3% from 2023. The plastic bag tax generates in a year 2.5 times the 2024 climate budget cuts. But it will only have a slight impact for 2024 as it would be removed in November.
Minister Pourmokthari defended that it was still the third biggest climate and environment budget ever, although acknowledging it was a “combination of sweet and salt” and that “you are never totally satisfied.”
The government wants to facilitate the development of nuclear energy, will increase the budget for the preservation of wetlands, or also financially incentivize individuals to get rid of their combustion cars to convert to electric.
But in its Climate and environment budget, the administration evaluated that, due to decisions between July 2022 and July 2023, Sweden’s carbon emissions are projected to increase between 5.9 and 9.8 million tons of CO2 equivalent by 2030, to decrease in the long term by up to 1.8 billion tons by 2045.
Sweden’s total emissions accounted for 48 million tCO2eq in 2022, which means the next few years could increase more than 10 percent of Sweden’s annual emissions. But it would also mean the country would miss its 2030 carbon emission reduction target.
