Extended Producer Responsibility A Guidance Manual For Governments

This guidance manual presents the potential benefits and costs associated with Extended Producer Responsibility.

This report updates the 2001 Guidance Manual for Governments on Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR), which provided a broad overview of the key issues, general considerations, and the potential benefits and costs associated with producer responsibility for managing the waste.

Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR), a policy approach in which the responsibility of the waste from a consumer good is extended back up to the producer of the good, is developing and expanding in OECD countries. Work on EPR started in 1994 and OECD published an EPR guidance manual in 2001. Governments find that these schemes can provide a new and flexible approach to reduce the upward trend of waste from consumer products. To further analyse the concept, OECD organised a workshop in 11-12 December 2002, which was hosted by the Japanese Ministry of Environment, in Tokyo. This book contains selected papers presented at this workshop. The selected papers specifically addressed the following issues: EPR policy goals; evaluation of the performance of four national EPR schemes; technical innovation Dan EPR policies; political economy for implementing EPR policies; and EPR and cost sharing along the production chain

This Guidance Manual includes detailed explanations on how to implement the OECD Decision on the Control of Transboundary Movements of Recoverable Wastes.

The book presents high-quality research papers from the Seventh International Conference on Solid Waste Management (IconSWM 2017), held at Professor Jayashankar Telangana State Agricultural University, Hyderabad on December 15–17, 2017. The conference, an official side event of the high-level Intergovernmental Eighth Regional 3R Forum in Asia and the Pacific, aimed to generate scientific inputs into the policy consultation of the Forum co-organized by the UNCRD/UNDESA, MoEFCC India, MOUD India and MOEJ, Japan. Presenting research on solid waste management from more than 30 countries, the book is divided into three volumes and addresses various issues related to innovation and implementation in sustainable waste management, segregation, collection, transportation of waste, treatment technology, policy and strategies, energy recovery, life cycle analysis, climate change, research and business opportunities.

Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR), a policy approach in which the responsibility of the waste from a consumer good is extended back up to the producer of the good, is developing and expanding in OECD countries. This conference proceedings presents various perspectives on EPR.

E-waste management is a serious challenge across developed, transition, and developing countries because of the consumer society and the globalization process. E-waste is a fast-growing waste stream which needs more attention of international organizations, governments, and local authorities in order to improve the current waste management practices. The book reveals the pollution side of this waste stream with critical implications on the environment and public health, and also it points out the resource side which must be further developed under the circular economy framework with respect to safety regulations. In this context, complicated patterns at the global scale emerge under legal and illegal e-waste trades. The linkages between developed and developing countries and key issues of e-waste management sector are further examined in the book.

The massive increase in consumer product waste, its toxicity, and the complexity of materials have created an unbearable financial and management burden for municipal officials—it has become untenable. We have outgrown the era of municipalities being solely responsible for recycling. A paradigm shift is needed. The concepts of Extended Producer Responsibility and Product Stewardship play a significant role in bringing our consumption of natural resources and emission of greenhouse gases back into balance with the earth’s ability to absorb these impacts. Perspectives on Product Stewardship provides an overview on managing products throughout their life cycles in order to conserve resources, decrease environmental impact, and share the burden of responsibility. It gives the reader a broad understanding of the origins and evolution of the rapidly expanding field of product stewardship and extended producer responsibility, while providing exemplary and precautionary case studies—on paint, batteries, and packaging. Informative and timely, this reference will be useful to anyone engaged in, or embarking on, efforts to reduce impacts from consumer products: producers, retailers, waste management professionals, recyclers, governments, environmental advocates, students, and the public.