What is EPR

What is EPR?

The essence of EPR Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) is an efficient resource management tool whereby producers take over the responsibility for the end of life management of their used products. This can include collection, sorting and treating these for their recycling and recovery. Its basic feature is that actors across the packaging value chain (manufacturers, importers and retailers) assume a significant degree of responsibility for the environmental impact of their products throughout their life?cycle. This includes products’ ‘upstream’ impact linked to the selection of materials, product design and production processes as such, as well as ‘downstream’ impact relating to the products’ use and disposal. In so doing, producers accept their responsibility when designing their products so as to minimise their life-cycle environmental impact. They thereby assume legal and economic liability for their products’ environmental impact, starting from the design phase. EPR is therefore about “extending the producers’ responsibility to the post-consumer stage of a product life cycle". Through EPR, Member States also share public service responsibilities with private companies, which have to assume these themselves. The policy first appeared in the early 1990s in a few European Member States, especially for packaging waste, and has later on expanded across the EU and beyond.Since then, EPR has contributed to significant increases in recycling rates and public spending savings on waste management, and helped decouple waste management from economic growth.

EPR Goals

To provide incentives for eco-design: Through EPR, producers establish an efficient end-of-life management for their products. This spurs them to design products that are easier to dismantle, reuse and recycle. Consequently, products’ total environmental impact decreases and waste prevention is stimulated.

3. To reduce landfilling and develop recycling and recovery channels: EPR has proven to be an effective waste management tool for various different waste streams and can help divert waste from landfills. EPR moreover boosts the use of waste management options that are higher up in the waste hierarchy than landfilling, notably recycling.

2. To create a sustainable production and consumption policy: EPR encourages separate waste collection and recycling, as it is often implemented to help Member States to reach their recycling targets. By doing so, EPR also ensures citizens’ cooperation, as they need to separately collect and sort their waste in order to facilitate recycling processes. This entails promoting education and awareness raising campaigns towards consumers, aimed at encouraging separate collection and recycling while discouraging littering.

EPR in practice

EPR is an individual obligation as companies that place products on the market are responsible for their proper end-of-life management. In practice, however, producers often work collectively to exert this responsibility by setting up Producer Responsibility Organisations (PROs), which are also called EPR or compliance schemes. PROs should be non-profit collective entities, set up and fully owned by the industry that is bound by legislation. Therefore,PROs become responsible for meeting recovery and recycling obligations on the industry’s behalf. Some PROs have a public service mission and operate in a non-for-profit or profit-not-for?distribution basis, but others, owned by investors and/or the waste management industry, actually seek profit. Non-profit systems deploy a holistic approach to waste management, embracing both waste prevention and recycling. Coupled with their operational implementation, they maximise environmental, economic and social benefits.

Generally, PROs exert the following functions:

• Organise, often together with the local authorities, the take back of post?consumer products.

• Ensure recovery and recycling targets compliance.

• Assist companies in (packaging) waste prevention, eco-design promotion & communication materials towards the waste holder, together with the local authorities.

• Verify the data and reporting of those companies.

• Report to national authorities.

EPR in legislation

The legislative framework for the development of EPR at the European Union level is composed of both general waste legislation, and specific directives framing the recovery and recycling of specific waste streams. The Waste Framework Directive (2008/98/EC) sets the general framework for waste management in the EU. It enables Member States to set up EPR schemes. The EU has moreover issued waste stream specific directives, inter alia for packaging, waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE), end-of-life vehicles (ELV), batteries and accumulators (B&A). While WEEE, ELV and B&A require Member States to set up EPR for the products they cover, there is currently no obligation to set up EPR schemes for packaging. However, at least for household waste, most Member States (25 out of 28) have chosen to do so.

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