Extended producer responsibility (EPR) is a policy that makes producers responsible for the environmental costs of their products throughout their life cycle. These costs are added to the product's market price and are currently mainly used in waste management. These societal costs are usually not included in the price of a product, with a common example being the environmental effects of cars.

EPR laws help encourage remanufacturing because they focus on how products are handled after they are used up. The main goal is to increase how much of a product is reused and reduce the harm waste causes to the environment.

Making producers responsible for their environmental impact is not just about environmental rules but also helps improve how products are designed to be better for the environment.

Origin

The idea was first officially introduced in Sweden by Thomas Lindhqvist in a 1990 report to the Swedish Ministry of the Environment. In later reports for the same ministry, a definition was created: "EPR is a way to protect the environment by reducing the overall harm caused by a product. This is done by making the company that makes the product responsible for its entire life cycle, especially for collecting, recycling, and properly disposing of it."

Definition

Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) is a policy that uses money-related rewards or requirements to encourage companies to create products that are better for the environment. This policy holds the companies that make products responsible for the costs of managing those products when they are no longer useful. EPR is different from product stewardship, which divides responsibility for managing a product among all people involved in its life cycle. EPR tries to help local governments by making companies include the cost of recycling their products in the product’s price. This approach is based on the idea that companies have the most control over how products are designed and sold, and they are best able to reduce harmful effects on the environment and waste.

EPR can include programs that encourage reuse, buying back used items, or recycling. A company may also choose to give this responsibility to another group, such as a producer responsibility organization (PRO), which is paid by the company to manage used products. In this way, EPR moves the responsibility for managing waste from government to private companies, requiring producers, importers, and sellers to include waste management costs in their product prices and ensure their products are handled safely. However, people involved in this process may have different views about how EPR works and the role of companies.

An example of a producer responsibility organization is PRO Europe S.P.R.L. (Packaging Recovery Organisation Europe), which was started in 1995. It is the main organization for recycling and recovering packaging waste in Europe. Product stewardship organizations like PRO Europe help companies avoid the need to take back used products themselves by having one group manage these tasks for all member companies nationwide. The goal is to recycle packaging waste in the most cost-effective and environmentally friendly way. In many countries, this is shown through the Green Dot symbol, which PRO Europe licenses for use. In 25 countries, companies use the Green Dot to signal that they are part of programs that organize the recovery, sorting, and recycling of packaging used for sales.

OECD guidance manuals

The OECD created a handbook about EPR in 2001 after long discussions by experts in this area. In 2016, the handbook was updated to add information from developing countries, using their experiences and new policies.

Take-back

In response to the increasing problem of too much waste, many countries created waste management rules. These rules require companies to collect their products from consumers after the products are no longer useful, or to help pay for systems that collect and recycle waste. These rules were created because some products contain harmful materials, and it was difficult or expensive for local governments to collect them. The main goals of these take-back laws are to work with businesses to manage waste safely, protecting both people and the environment. The goals of take-back laws include:

• encouraging companies to make products that can be reused, recycled, or use fewer materials;
• helping consumers understand waste costs by including these costs in the price of products;
• supporting the development of better recycling technologies.

Take-back programs help achieve these goals by giving companies reasons to design products that reduce waste management costs, use safer materials (so they don’t need special handling), or are easier to recycle and reuse (so recycling becomes more profitable). The first take-back programs started in Europe, where governments created initiatives to address limited landfill space and harmful materials in products. The European Union passed a rule called the Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) Directive. This rule aims to stop the creation of electronic waste and to encourage the reuse and recycling of such waste. It requires countries in the EU to support product designs that make it easier to take apart and recover materials from products. These take-back programs are now used in nearly all OECD countries. In the United States, most of these rules are set by individual states.

Plastic bags

Recycling, banning, and taxation do not work well enough to reduce pollution from plastic bags. A different approach is to increase extended producer responsibility, or EPR. During the Clinton presidency, the President's Council on Sustainable Development proposed EPR to involve different groups in a product's life cycle. However, EPR can raise product costs because companies must consider these costs before selling items. This is why EPR is not widely used in the United States today. Instead, the United States often uses bans or taxes on plastic bags, which place the responsibility on consumers. In the United States, EPR is not required by law. Some, including a 2012 study by Columbia University students, have suggested combining taxation, producer responsibility, and recycling to reduce pollution.

Electronics

Many governments and companies have started using extended producer responsibility to help solve the problem of e-waste, which is old electronics that contain harmful materials not safe to throw away with regular trash. In 2007, the Environmental Protection Agency reported that 2.5 million tons of e-waste, such as cell phones, TVs, computers, and printers, were thrown away. Many governments have worked with companies to create systems for collecting and recycling e-waste.

E-waste contains dangerous chemicals, including lead, mercury, brominated flame-retardants, and cadmium. Lead is found in screens of phones, TVs, and monitors and can harm kidneys, nerves, blood, bones, reproductive organs, and muscles. Mercury is in flat-screen TVs, laptop screens, and fluorescent bulbs and can damage kidneys and the nervous system. Brominated flame-retardants in cables and plastic cases can cause cancer and harm the liver and nerves. Cadmium in rechargeable batteries can lead to kidney damage and cancer. Poorer countries often receive e-waste because some governments pay to have it dumped there. This increases health risks for people living near these dumps.

In the United States, 25 states have laws requiring e-waste recycling. Of these, 23 have included extended producer responsibility in their rules. The Product Stewardship Institute found that some states lack recycling systems or money for proper disposal. In contrast, the Electronics TakeBack Coalition found that states with successful recycling programs have convenient systems or set goals for companies to meet.

Advocates say that laws with high performance standards, even as minimum requirements, help make EPR work. The more types of products collected, the more e-waste is recycled properly.

Similar laws exist globally. The European Union has banned harmful substances in electronics and stopped exporting waste. China banned e-waste imports in 2000 and started using EPR in 2012, but illegal waste smuggling still happens. Today, China requires licenses for e-waste disposal and holds plants responsible for pollution. U.S. EPR laws still allow e-waste to be sent to China. The IEEE has suggested a system where companies pay deposits for recycling.

When companies must pay for recycling their products, they may design electronics that are safer, easier to recycle, and last longer. Using fewer materials and making products last longer can lower recycling costs. EPR helps reduce planned obsolescence, as it encourages companies to make products last longer. It also reduces the cost for governments, which often spend millions on e-waste disposal. However, these plans often fail because governments lack funding.

EPR becomes more effective when it pressures countries that export e-waste to manage it themselves. For example, when China stopped accepting U.S. e-waste, waste built up at ports. This forced the U.S. to improve its recycling systems.

Some people worry that EPR may not work for complex electronics, like lithium-ion batteries, which are hard to recycle. Others fear EPR could raise electronics prices because companies might add recycling costs to prices. Recycling old TVs, which contain lead, can be expensive. Critics say EPR might slow innovation or prevent companies from using better materials.

Other critics argue that EPR could reduce reuse of electronics if companies destroy secondhand items instead of repairing or reusing them. Some say EPR does not push companies to make greener designs, as companies already use less material and energy in production.

The Reason Foundation says EPR is unclear about how recycling fees are set. Fees are meant to encourage recycling, but unclear rules may confuse companies about what materials to use in their products.

Fossil fuels

A study shows that making companies take full responsibility for their fossil fuel products from creation to disposal could help both energy security and climate goals at a low cost. The study suggests that this approach could be used to pay for storing carbon dioxide and using natural solutions to address environmental challenges.

Implementation

EPR has been used in many ways, which can be grouped into three main types:

• Mandatory
• Negotiated
• Voluntary

Economic policies in market-driven countries often avoid influencing consumer choices, leading to a focus on producers when discussing environmental effects of industrial activities. For example, statistics about energy use, emissions, and water use are usually linked to industries themselves ("on-site" or "direct" impacts) rather than to the products consumers use. Many corporate sustainability reports also only include impacts from activities directly managed by the company, not those from its supply chains. According to this view, environmental effects from production steps before or after a product is made are usually assigned to the immediate producers, without considering the roles of different groups or organizations involved.

Studies have shown that in industrialized countries, consumer habits and wealth are major factors driving environmental pressure. While these findings suggest that policies should also consider consumer behavior, efforts to address environmental issues from the demand side are rarely used.

Different views on who is responsible for environmental impacts caused by industrial production are shown in discussions about greenhouse gas emissions. Data reported to the IPCC often credit emissions to industries in specific countries, not to the products consumed by people, regardless of where the products were made. However, for countries that trade goods internationally, considering the greenhouse gases in traded products can greatly affect national emissions records. If consumer responsibility is considered, exports would reduce a country's emissions, while imports would increase them. For example, in Denmark, research by Munksgaard and Pedersen (2001) found that energy-intensive goods traded across borders significantly changed Denmark’s CO₂ balance between 1966 and 1994. Electricity traded between Norway, Sweden, and Denmark fluctuates yearly due to changes in rainfall. In wet years, Denmark imports hydroelectric power, while in dry years, it exports electricity from coal plants. Denmark’s official emissions report includes adjustments for electricity trade, reflecting consumer responsibility.

At the company level, simply reporting emissions within a company’s legal boundaries is not enough when using concepts like eco-efficiency or environmental management systems (e.g., ISO 14001). Companies must take responsibility for the full life cycle of their products, including managing how materials are chosen and products are designed. They should also ensure suppliers follow environmental standards and that raw materials are obtained sustainably. EPR frameworks also emphasize that producers should take responsibility for both the environmental impacts of their products after use (like disposal) and for earlier steps in production, such as material selection and product design. EPR became common in northern European countries in the late 1980s and early 1990s due to landfill shortages. It is now often used for managing post-consumer waste, which increases pressure on municipal waste systems.

EPR has rarely been measured consistently. Using traditional life cycle assessments to assign environmental impacts to producers and consumers can lead to counting the same impact twice. Researchers have used input-output analysis for years to fairly assign responsibility to all groups in an economy. Gallego and Lenzen describe a method to clearly divide supply chains into responsibilities shared by all groups in an economy. Their approach helps assign environmental impacts from all steps in a supply chain—both producers and consumers—to all involved parties.

Examples

Auto Recycling Nederland (ARN) is a group responsible for recycling vehicles in the Netherlands. A fee is charged to people who buy new vehicles. This fee helps pay for recycling the vehicle when it is no longer useful. The group was created to follow a European Union rule about recycling old vehicles.

The Swiss Association for Information, Communication, and Organisational Technology (SWICO), which represents the ICT industry, became a PRO to help manage electronic waste.

The Canada-Wide Action Plan for Extended Producer Responsibility (CAP-EPR) was started in Canada in 2009 with help from the Canadian Council of Ministers of the Environment. Before this plan, many recycling efforts in Canada did not work well, and waste remained in landfills and incinerators. After 30 years of recycling efforts, Canada lagged behind many G8 and OECD countries. Since 2009, most provinces in Canada have passed laws or rules to expand EPR programs. Nine out of ten provinces have now started EPR programs or added requirements. Because of these changes, almost half of the product categories in Phase 1 are now covered by EPR laws across Canada.

In Russia, EPR was started in 2015. However, waste management still mainly depends on taxes paid by the Russian population. In 2022, all packaging was supposed to be recycled, or products from companies that did not follow the rules would be taken off store shelves. The country delayed this plan because some ministers said it was not practical.

In the United Kingdom, an extended producer responsibility system will be introduced in the coming years. The government has already given guidance to those most affected. The main challenge is finding a way to encourage companies to take responsibility for recycling rather than passing the cost to suppliers or customers.

In India, the E-Waste (Management and Handling) Rules from 2011 introduced EPR for the first time. The E-Waste (Management) Rules from 2016 set stricter goals for collecting used products and made it easier to apply for EPR authorization. In 2016, the government expanded EPR to manage plastic waste through the Plastic Waste Management Rules. In India, the system for trading EPR certificates is similar to the way carbon credits are traded, with certificates being exchanged between producers and brand owners.

In Austria, the polluter-pays principle was introduced on January 1, 2023. This means companies that produce waste are responsible for paying the costs of recycling it.

Results

In Germany, after the introduction of EPR, "between 1991 and 1998, the average person used 94.7 kg of packaging materials per year, which dropped to 82 kg by 1998, leading to a 13.4% decrease." Because of Germany’s success with EPR, "the European Commission created one waste directive" for all EU countries. A major goal of this directive was for all member states to recycle "25% of all packaging materials," which was achieved.

In the United States, EPR is becoming more common. "Since 2008, 40 EPR laws have been passed. In 2010, 38 EPR bills were proposed in state legislatures, and 12 became laws." These laws are created at the state level, not by the federal government. So far, "only a few states have passed five to six EPR laws, and 32 states have at least one EPR law."

Starting in 2022, if a product is sold in France or Germany, online marketplaces must confirm that the manufacturer follows the EPR rules in the country where the product is sold.

Some challenges exist when implementing EPR rules. One issue is the difficulty of managing different regulations across countries and types of waste. Since EPR requirements vary by region, companies selling products in multiple areas may face complex rules. For example, groups that help manage EPR responsibilities (called PROs) require different registration steps, reporting formats, and data collection methods. This can create more work for companies selling products in many countries and waste categories.

To solve these problems, some ideas have been suggested. One is creating a digital "one-stop shop" for EPR registrations and reporting, which could simplify procedures across regions. Other solutions involve using technology to collect and process waste-related data, which could reduce costs and make reporting easier.

Another topic of discussion is whether EPR policies effectively reduce waste and encourage better product design. EPR was originally meant to make producers pay for waste management. However, some governments now want EPR to also promote designs that help the environment, such as reusing or recycling materials. Whether EPR achieves these goals is still debated. One reason for this debate is the complexity of EPR rules, which can make them hard to implement. Also, unclear rules can make it difficult to enforce EPR, especially with companies that avoid following the rules but still sell products (called "free riders").