Extended Producer Responsibility(EPR)

Presented by Dereje T.
 BACKGROUND

• Electronic products have not only become an integral part of our lives, but
also contribute significantly to environmental consequences.

• We are dependent upon countless number of electrical and electronic

products but we do not think about what happens to these goods once they
become discarded.
 Background cont’d

• Electronic waste or e-waste is an emerging problem in developed and

developing countries worldwide.

• India is among the top five countries in the world, in terms of e-waste
generation next to China, USA, Japan and Germany.
 INTRODUCTION
• The extended producer responsibility policy was introduced by
Thomas Lindhqvist in a report to the Swedish Ministry of
Environment in 1990.

• It was introduced in various European countries viz. Austria,

Germany, Netherlands, Switzerland, and the Scandinavian
countries.
 Cont’d

• Soon it spread to most of the OECD(Organization for Economic

Co-operation and Development ) countries and several
developing countries in past few years.

• The E-Waste (Management and Handling) Rules, 2011

introduced the concept of EPR for the first time in India
 What is EPR ?
According to Swedish Ministry of the Environment and Natural Resources
• Extended producer responsibility is an environmental protection strategy to
reach an environmental objective of a decreased total environmental
impact from 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 of the product.
 cont’d

• Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) is a policy approach under which

producers are given a significant responsibility – financial and/or physical –
for the treatment or disposal of post-consumer products.

• This is the idea behind the policy of extended producer responsibility (EPR).
 Cont’d

• An effective way of e-waste management is to encourage manufacturers to

design environmentally friendly products.

• Companies have the greatest ability and responsibility to reduce toxicity

and waste.
 cont’d

• Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)

countries, Japan and China, to name a few, are some of the countries which
have benefited themselves out of the EPR programs.

• Targets for the producers to collect and recycle end-of-life products of their
goods.
• The extended producer responsibility entails three liabilities
These three liabilities are described below:

i. Economic responsibility
ii. Physical responsibility
iii.Informative responsibility
 Cont’d

I. Economic responsibility :- means that the producer will cover all or part of
the expenses, for example, for the collection, recycling or final disposal of
products they manufacturing.
These expenses could be paid for directly by producer or by a special fee.
 Cont’d

ii. Physical responsibility :- is used to characterize the systems where the

manufacturer is involved in the physical management of the products and/or
their effects.
• The manufacturer may also retain ownership of his product throughout the
product’s lifecycle and therefore be responsible for environmental damage
caused by it.
 Cont’d

III. Informative responsibility :- signifies several different possibilities to

extend responsibility for the products by requiring the producers to supply
information on the environmental properties of the products they are
manufacturing.
• However the “end of the life product” has become the popular focus for most EPR
policy .

• and the earliest take-back activity began in Europe, where Government sponsored
take-back initiatives arose from concerns about scarce landfill space and
potentially hazardous substances in component parts.

• In Japan producers are responsible for recycling cars and electronic products and in
Canada many provinces are now passing take-back laws for paints, batteries, tires,
packaging and electronics waste.
 References

[1] https://www.oecd.org/env/tools-
evaluation/extendedproducerresponsibility.htm#targetText=Extended%20Producer
%20Responsibility%20(EPR)%20is,disposal%20of%20post%2Dconsumer%20product
s.&targetText=It%20discusses%20the%20potential%20benefits%20and%20costs%2
0associated%20with%20EPR.
[2] https://www.oecd.org/env/tools-
evaluation/extendedproducerresponsibility.htm#targetText=Extended%20Producer
%20Responsibility%20(EPR)%20is,disposal%20of%20post%2Dconsumer%20product
s.&targetText=It%20discusses%20the%20potential%20benefits%20and%20costs%2
0associated%20with%20EPR.
Thank you!