Zero Waste: Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR)
- EPR refers to manufacturers positively managing the environmental impacts (throughout the life-cycle) of their products.
- This is an emerging pollution prevention and waste management principle that focuses on systems of production instead of production facilities.
Aim
To encourage producers to prevent pollution and reduce resource and energy use at each stage of the product life-cycle through changes in product design and process technology.
Applies to products such as:
Beverage containers, scrap tyres, batteries, electrical equipment, end-of-life vehicles, used oil, paint, pharmaceuticals, solvents, fuels & pesticides, furniture, to name but a few.
An example of Industry Stewardship Programmes in Canada
Industry stewardship initiatives have a prominent place on the roadmap to zero waste and, taking Canada as an example, such programmes perform a conspicuous part in reducing waste going to landfill.
Download the following reports:
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A summary report by Michael Jessen outlining Industry Stewardship and Producer Responsibility in Canada |
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A more comprehensive report entitled Industry Product Stewardship and Beverage Container Waste Management Programs in Canada |
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'Extended Producer Reponsibility: Container Deposit Legislation Report', by the Zero Waste New Zealand Trust, September 2002 |
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British Columbia Product Stewardship |
EPR in New Zealand?
Packaging Accord
New Zealand's Packaged Goods Accord is being updated from the first voluntary Accord signed in 1996. The draft version (of July 2003) is available from www.packaging.org.nz)
The objective is to improve the sustainability of packaging used in New Zealand through:
- improved partnerships, policies and processes
- brand owners and retailers accepting the primary responsibility for product stewardship over the full packaging life cycle
- improved material and energy efficiency in the production, use and recovery of packaging materials
- supply chain initiatives to foster markets for sustainably produced packaged goods, including greater utilisation of recovered packaging materials.
Signatories include:
- The Packaging Council of New Zealand
- The Minister for the Environment
Endorsing parties are:
- Local Government New Zealand
- Recycling Operators of New Zealand
The proposed signing date is June 22 2004
Other references
- The Institute for Sustainable Futures, Australia, produced a Container Deposit Legislation review for the Minister for the Environment for New South Wales, Australia, as part of the Waste Act review in 2000-01.
The report clearly defines the social, environmental and economic costs and benefits of CDL to the community and industry.
Go to www.isf.uts.edu.au/CDL_Review - Clean Production Action has produced an EPR 'Producer Takeback' toolkit that is available online.
It takes a comprehensive look at what EPR is, how it can help solve the waste problem, how it benefits local governments, taxpayers and businesses as well as examining existing EPR campaigns and examples of EPR programmes overseas.
Go to www.cleanproduction.org
The history of EPR
Europe as a frontrunner
The first EPR programme was put in place in Germany in 1991 with the advent of the German Packaging Ordinance. The Packaging Ordinance held producers responsible for managing packaging waste (which accounted for one-third by weight and one-half by volume of municipal waste).
The Packaging Ordinance resulted in the Duales System Deutschland (DSD), a non-profit company, which licenses its logo - the green dot - for a fee. Packages bearing the symbol are collected, sorted, and directed to recyclers by DSD. Fees are based on the material and weight of the package and are paid by the "filler" - usually the owner of the product brand name.
Official statistics indicate that the long-term trend of annually increasing packaging consumption in Germany was reversed in the years following the passage of the Packaging Ordinance. Between 1991 and 1995, packaging consumption decreased by about one million tons. According to EPA data, packaging consumption in the United States during the same period increased 13 percent. Packaging recycling in Germany also increased from 52% in 1993 to 84% in 1996.
The Packaging Ordinance has also stimulated development of new sorting and recycling technologies, with Germany's export of environmental technologies only slightly less than those of the United States, which has an economy and population three times as large.
In 1994 the European Union issued its own Packaging Directive. This directive embraced the concept of EPR and mandated recycling targets for packaging waste of 25 to 45%, with a minimum 15% recycling rate for each material. As a result, all 15 member countries will ultimately have EPR systems for packaging. Korea and Taiwan are also adopting EPR policies, and Japan's law requiring EPR for packaging was passed in 1995 and went into effect in 1997. In total, twenty-eight countries now have packaging take-back laws.
There is however great variation between EPR programs for packaging, with major differences relating to:
- The allocation of responsibility between government and industry
- The level of mandated recycling rates
- The time frame for achieving mandated recycling rates
- What counts as recycling
- What packaging materials are included in the program
- The types of collection systems used
- The use of deposit/refund mechanisms
- Implementation through third-party organisations
However, there are three key elements that all EPR policies (outside the United States) have in common:
- They extend responsibility to the post-consumer stage.
- The responsibility of the producer is always physical and/or financial - producers either physically take back and recycle their products or pay a third party to do so.
- Guidelines (usually set by government) require specific recycling rates, define what counts as recycling, and require data collection and reporting.
Germany shifted full responsibility for managing packaging waste to industry.
In France and Japan, municipalities remain responsible for waste collection and industry was made responsible only for the recycling of certain materials.
Britain's packaging scheme allocates a specific percentage of the responsibility to each industry player: 47% for retailers, 36% for packers and fillers, 11% for converters and 6% for raw material processors.
As take back and recycling of packaging by each individual producer is not always practical, EPR policies usually permit producers to form "producer responsibility organizations" (PROs) which enable them to fulfill their responsibilities collectively.
These organisations license their logos for a fee and use the revenues to finance collection and recycling. It is important that the fee structures imposed by PROs reward companies that choose to design less wasteful and more economically recyclable products.
PROs include the Duales System Deutschland (DSD) in Germany, Eco-Emballages in France, Alstoff Recycling in Austria, Fost Plus in Belgium, VALPAK in the United Kingdom and the Rechargeable Battery Recycling Corporation (RBRC) in the United States.
Other types of EPR are in place for Electric and Electronic Equipment and for end-of-life vehicles.
Electric and electronic equipment (EEE) is a major focus of EPR policies around the world. Already Switzerland, the Netherlands, Italy, Norway and Japan have EEE policies in place and the EU is developing its own directive to harmonize policies in Europe.
Vehicle recycling is well established, with about 75% of a vehicles weight consisting of iron and steel. The target for EPR is the remaining 25% of mixed materials.
Both Germany and France have negotiated take back policies on end-of-life vehicles (ELV) with industry, Sweden has passed legislation requiring EPR for vehicles and Japan is developing legislation. A common target in most programs is a 95% recovery rate for 2015, meaning that only 5% of ELV's would be permitted in landfills by that date.
Led by Germany's producers, European vehicle manufacturers have been planning for the advent of EPR since the early '90s, redesigning their vehicles for disassembly and recycling. Strategies include increasing recycling content, reducing the number of plastic resins, labeling plastics, marking parts to permit draining of fluids (so recycling feedstock is not contaminated), and using fasteners that facilitate disassembly.
EPR has already had major impacts on the three R's (reduce, reuse, recycle) and on product and package design - impacts that have spread well beyond the borders of the countries that have EPR policies in place.
The major impetus for EPR has come in countries experiencing severe shortages of landfill capacity. But the policy's environmental benefits go well beyond reducing pressure on disposal facilities.
Well-designed EPR programs encourage both source reduction and recycling, and therefore result in reduced energy and materials consumption and reduced toxicity of products.
When consumption of energy and materials decreases, the environmental impacts associated with these activities - such as air and water emissions - also decline substantially.
Therefore, EPR can be viewed not only as a mechanism to divert materials from disposal but as an important strategy for sustainability.
(Adapted from a preprint of an article: Betty K. Fishbein, EPR: What Does It Mean? Where Is It Headed? P2: Pollution Prevention Review, pp. 43-55, Volume 8 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.)
Other references:
Beverley Thorpe and Iza Kruszewska, Strategies To Promote Clean Production - Extended Producer Responsibility, Clean Production Action, January 1999, http://www.grrn.org/resources/BevEPR.html
Carola Hanisch, Is Extended Producer Responsibility Effective?, Environmental Science and Technology, April 1, 2000/Volume 34, Issue 7/ pp170 or http://pubs.acs.org/hotartcl/est/00/apr/hanis.html