Extended producer responsibility

In the field of waste management, extended producer responsibility (EPR) is a strategy designed to promote the integration of environmental costs associated with goods throughout their life cycles into the market price of the products. Extended producer responsibility legislation is a driving force behind the adoption of remanufacturing initiatives as it "focuses on the end-of-use treatment of consumer products and has the primary aim to increase the amount and degree of product recovery and to minimize the environmental impact of waste materials"

The concept was first formally introduced in Sweden by Thomas Lindhqvist in a 1990 report to the Swedish Ministry of the Environment. In subsequent reports prepared for the Ministry, the following definition emerged: "[EPR] is an environmental protection strategy to reach an environmental objective of a decreased total environmental impact of a product, by making the manufacturer of the product responsible for the entire life-cycle of the product and especially for the take-back, recycling and final disposal.

EPR uses financial incentives to encourage manufacturers to design environmentally friendly products by holding producers responsible for the costs of managing their products at end of life. This policy approach, which differs from product stewardship, which shares responsibility across the chain of custody of a product, attempts to relieve local governments of the costs of managing certain priority products by requiring manufacturers internalize the cost of recycling within the product price. EPR is based upon the principle that because producers (usually brand owners) have the greatest control over product design and marketing and these same companies have the greatest ability and responsibility to reduce toxicity and waste.

EPR may take the form of a reuse, buy-back, or recycling program. The producer may also choose to delegate this responsibility to a third party, a so-called producer responsibility organization (PRO), which is paid by the producer for used-product management. In this way, EPR shifts the responsibility for waste management from government to private industry, obliging producers, importers and/or sellers to internalise waste management costs in their product prices and ensuring the safe handling of their products.

A good example for producer responsibility organizations are the member organizations of PRO EUROPE. PRO EUROPE s.p.r.l. (Packaging Recovery Organisation Europe), founded in 1995, is the umbrella organization for European packaging and packaging waste recovery and recycling schemes. Product stewardship organizations like PRO EUROPE are intended to relieve industrial companies and commercial enterprises of their individual obligation to take back used products through the operation of an organization which fulfills these obligations on a nationwide basis on behalf of their member companies. The aim is to ensure the recovery and recycling of packaging waste in the most economically efficient and ecologically sound manner. In many countries, this is done through suzy the Green Dot (symbol) trademark of which PRO EUROPE is the general licensor. The "Green Dot" has evolved into a proven concept in many countries as implementation of Producer Responsibility. In twenty-five nations companies are now using the "Green Dot" as the financing symbol for the organization of recovery, sorting and recycling of sales packaging.

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