Showing papers on "Extended producer responsibility published in 2003"

Product Durability and Extended Producer Responsibility in Solid Waste Management

Abstract: Using a vintage durable good model, this paper investigates how extended producer responsibility (EPR) in waste management influences product durability and welfare. Four EPR instruments are discussed and compared with the benchmark in which producers do not receive price signals for waste disposal. In each case, EPR induces durability to increase. Under perfect competition the welfare change caused by EPR is unambiguously positive and one EPR instrument is even capable of implementing the first-best welfare optimum. In contrast, under imperfect competition EPR may lead to a welfare reduction. The analysis also compares EPR to non-EPR measures.

Beyond systems: a vision for corporate environmental management for the future

Abstract: The paper sets out how corporate environmental management techniques have become dominated by environmental management systems and the concept of eco-efficiency and how this leads to some rather restrictive outcomes. In a world of globalisation, with an emphasis on free trade, there are many new environmental challenges that need to be addressed. Not least, it is argued that globalisation leads to an increase in the "weightlessness" of corporations as companies externalise more of their production activities. Since systems are essentially an internal management tool, this externalisation means that they cannot manage many of the environmental impacts of the modern corporation. In order to survive in the globalised environment and achieve business performance consistent with sustainable development, it is argued that a new emphasis must be placed on environmental supply chain management and extended producer responsibility running in parallel with new initiatives on social responsibility and fairer trading relationships. In effect, the paper calls for a switch in emphasis away from systems and towards product stewardship along the whole supply chain. This should form the basis of a new competitive advantage through a new emphasis on differentiation of products and company image.

The Role of Economics in Extended Producer Responsibility: Making Policy Choices and Setting Policy Goals

Abstract: Extended producer responsibility (EPR) embodies the notion that producers should be made physically or financially responsible for the environmental impacts their products have at the end of product life. The EPR concept has taken hold in Europe and is garnering wide interest in the United States, where a variant known as “shared product responsibility” or “product stewardship” is usually the preferred approach. There are several policy instruments that are consistent with EPR—product take-back mandates, advance disposal fees, deposit-refunds, recycled content standards, and more. The EPR concept itself, however, provides little guidance about which of these instruments might be appropriate under particular conditions and for particular products. Moreover, while the EPR goal is usually focused on end-of-life environmental impacts, in the United States, at least, the goal seems to have widened to include environmental impacts throughout the product life-cycle. And even a focus on end-of-life impacts leaves the question of whether EPR is intended to deal with waste volumes, the toxic constituents of waste, the method of waste disposal, or a combination of these things. In this paper, I address three main topics: appropriate goals for EPR; conditions under which EPR should be preferred over alternative non-EPR policy instruments; and specific policy instruments that are both cost-effective and consistent with EPR principles. In the discussion of the second and third topics, I focus on the issue of “design for environment.” I develop four policy “maxims” that should guide EPR policymaking. I then apply those maxims to a brief case study of electronic and electrical equipment waste.

Strategies of Extended Producer Responsibility for Buildings

Abstract: Buildings use large amounts of materials and produce much waste. Some building materials are recycled, but most become waste. Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) policies require producers to be responsible for their products after their useful life. The basic drivers of EPR are reduced pollution and resource and energy use over a product’s life cycle. For buildings, EPR provides an opportunity to divert additional waste away from landfills and into reuse and recycling. Energy shortages and pollution prevention are concerns at regional and global levels, while material shortages occur in some regions. EPR can be achieved through regulatory, economic, or information instruments. Product takeback (PTB) is a regulatory instrument that requires producers to take back products at the end of their useful life and reuse or recycle them. This paper finds that PTB policies are not feasible for entire buildings, but many building materials and components are candidates for reuse and recycling. Using recycled materials may save energy, reduce virgin material use, and prevent pollution. Economic instruments can also be used to promote EPR for buildings, while information instruments are not as effective.

International expert group on Life Cycle assessment for integrated waste management

Abstract: Managing waste sustainably requires an assessment of the environmental costs and benefits of alternative waste management practices on a more sound and objective basis. The International Expert Group on life cycle assessment for integrated waste management (IEG) is a leading group of environmental experts with an interest in using Life Cycle techniques to inform waste management decision-making. Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is a technique that can be used to provide information about the likely polluting emissions and predicted environmental impacts of alternative designs for products or services. LCA for waste management specifically focuses on the environmental consequences of discarding waste materials and consumer products, identifying the costs of waste collection, treatment and any potential benefit of utilising the discarded material. Through iterative examination of various treatment alternatives for wastes, LCA can help identify optimal environmental solutions for managing wastes, without risking that the choice of decisions will result in a worsening of the overall impact. The IEG holds biannual workshop-style meetings to share international knowledge in the research area and to progress research activities. The meetings consist of presentations on life cycle modeling, LCA case studies for municipalities and specific waste streams, as well as pioneering research on decision-making and interpretation. Technical matters and issues of consistency of approach are also addressed during meetings through the knowledge and research activities of members and through the invitation of guest experts to meetings. This article provides an introduction to the work of the IEG and a summary of discussions from the 11th meeting of the group.

EPR Programmes: Individual versus Collective Responsibility Exploring various forms of implementation and their implication to design change

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Municipal solid waste management problems: an applied general equilibrium analysis

Abstract: Keywords: Environmental policy; General equilibrium modeling; Negishi format; Waste management policies; Market distortions. About 40% of the entire budget spent on environmental problems in the Netherlands is reserved for the waste management problem. Regardless of the amount spent on waste management, the quantity of municipal solid waste generated still increases. It has up till now proven impossible to decouple generation of municipal solid waste and income growth. This thesis investigates the policy options that can be used to reduce generation of municipal solid waste and looks specifically at the direct and indirect effects of introducing unit-based pricing. Two types of unit-based pricing are distinguished: a full unit-based pricing scheme, in which municipalities charge a variable price for collection of both organic waste and rest waste, and a selective unit-based pricing scheme, in which municipalities only charge a unit-based price for the collection of rest waste. It presents a modeling framework to simulate the waste market in the Netherlands . The model includes several municipalities as sources of waste, consumer preferences, economies of scale, transport costs, and several kinds of emissions caused by waste treatment. In this thesis specific focus was given to the possibility of waste leakage, where consumers pollute the organic waste stream with rest waste. The model was used in a stylized example with numerical data based on the Netherlands in 2000. The results show that the selective unit-based pricing scheme is the most effective policy tool to reduce generation of municipal solid waste. Due to the effects of waste leakage, however, it is not advisable to introduce unit-based pricing in every municipality. The results show that it is not cost effective to introduce selective unit-based pricing for waste collection in larger municipalities. In these municipalities the effects of waste leakage are too costly. The degree of pollution is so high that part of the organic waste stream cannot be composted and will have to be incinerated, thus greatly increasing the costs of treating organic waste. Only in small municipalities with a relatively large number of environmentally concerned consumers selective unit-based pricing can be introduced. Larger municipalities may consider introducing full unit-based pricing. This policy tool, however, only stimulates prevention and not recycling, thus the effects for reducing generation of rest waste are limited.

A Study on the Environmental Policies of Waste Batteries in China

Abstract: Following rapid economic growth and industrialization in China, environmental problems from waste batteries are rising as a consequence. There is an urgent environmental demand to establish a waste battery management system in China. With the purpose to contribute to the development of waste battery policy in China, this study presents the environmental problems from waste batteries in China and evaluates the environmental policies of waste batteries using an analysis framework. The framework is divided into two levels: Principle of Environmental Policy and Performance Criteria of Environmental Policy. According to the newly released the Technical Guide on Waste Battery Management, the future waste battery management system is described and analyzed, leading to the findings of its strength and weakness. Some possible policies are also discussed, including a common label, bar code, collection approaches, environmental taxes/charges, deposit refund system, environmental education and public information. Finally, the study arrives at the conclusion that the general status of waste battery management in China is not good. It must be a long-term task for China to set up an effective waste battery management system and drive battery industry toward sustainable development.

Reuse or Burn? : Evaluating the Producer Responsibility of Waste Paper

Abstract: This thesis consists of five papers, four of them basically concerning environmental issues, while the fifth paper addresses the issue of measuring output from the educational sector. The first paper starts from the fact that industrial activity causes environmental damage. Therefore, public authorities are called upon to regulate the behavior of producers by, e.g., legislating maximally allowed emission levels, which give rise to abatement costs. In this paper, marginal abatement costs (MACs) are estimated and a procedure to empirically analyze why MACs may vary between producers is suggested. The main focus is on whether the MACs in the Swedish pulp industry reveal that differences between counties in, e.g., economical characteristics, were influential when the authority, during 1983-1990, restricted 12 geographically scattered plants regarding emissions. The result indicates that county differences were influential. The second paper analyses and suggests a procedure for testing the Porter hypothesis. Part of this hypothesis is based on the argument that increased environmental stringency not only brings a cleaner environment, but also makes the polluting producers aware of the opportunity of using resources more efficiently. The particular test suggested considers whether there is a positive correlation between producers’ technical output efficiency and environmental stringency, approximated by a regulatory intensity index. It is empirically applied on 12 Swedish pulp plants during 1983-1990. No support for the Porter hypothesis is found in this particular case. The third paper deals with the climate policy issue. Under the Kyoto Protocol, the European Union agreed to reduce its emission of greenhouse gases by 8 percent in comparison with the level in 1990. The Burden-Sharing Agreement (BSA) further redistributes the 8 percent reduction target among the member states. This paper evaluates the BSA both from an economical and a political perspective, i.e., whether cost-efficiency and equity, respectively, were considered when the BSA was settled. The empirical result indicates that both efficiency and equity were considered as important to the BSA. The fourth paper evaluates the Swedish Producer Responsibility Ordinance (PRO), fully implemented in 1994, which states that sorted out, domestically collected waste paper, must be recycled by the paper industry and, therefore, cannot be incinerated by the heating industry in purpose of recovering energy. The result indicates that this policy has contributed to inefficient waste paper allocation among some of the paper producers. The result further indicates that the priority made by the PRO, i.e., that waste paper recycling is preferable to incineration, should be reconsidered. The fifth paper relates the empirical attempts of measuring output from the educational sector to theoretical results about the welfare significance of a comprehensive Net National Product (NNP) measure. It is shown that economic theory provides a more focused way of interpreting such output estimates. The paper also contains estimates of the output from the Swedish educational sector. Among the results, it is shown that the private gross output value produced by higher education is approximately 2 percent of GDP. Furthermore, the private rate of return on investments in higher education in Sweden is calculated to 8.6 percent.

Current Status for Resources Recycling in Korea

Abstract: In order to prospect current recycling status in Korea, legislative system and policies relating to recycling, wastes generation and recycling rate were reviewed. Approximately 303,000 ton/day of wastes was generated in 2003; 50,700 ton/day of household waste and 252,300 ton/ day of industrial waste. During the last ten years, waste management laws such as waste disposal law, recycling law and environment friendly industry law were prepared. In this article, concerning over waste generation and recycl-ing, recycling law, Extended Producer Responsibility System and the problems and technological developments associated with recycling were summarized.

Maximizing resource recovery from waste streams

Abstract: Resource conservation and waste management have become two sides of the same argument. According to the Institute for Local Self Reliance in the U.S., the recycling revolution begun in the 1960s was a reaction "to the levels of waste in our economy and the pollution and suffering these habits cause worldwide" [1, 2]. However, the recycling target-setting of the early 1990s was focused on diversion from landfill, and it has taken another 10 years for the focus to shift back to the resource values approach, driven largely by the application of Life Cycle Assessment to the waste management system. This paper examines materials in the waste stream to determine the "value proposition" in each material group, and to examine options for efficient resource use and recovery. Specifically, it discusses waste management issues associated with clean fill, food waste, timber waste, concrete and bricks, green waste, paper and board, metals, plastics, and glass.

Life cycle management, a bridge to more sustainable products

Abstract: EXTENDED ABSTRACT Life Cycle Management (LCM) is a new practical, integrated, and systematic approach to minimize the environmental and socio-economic burdens associated with a product (goods or service) over its entire life cycle and value chain. LCM will promote a sustainable development by linking environmental improvements with economic efficiency, and implementation will be useful for companies wanting to increase their resource productivity and be proactive and ready for the future challenges from society, legislations, and consumers. LCM is explicitly aimed to modify and improve the performance of product systems and supports the business assimilation of IPP, ecolabelling, design for environment, green procurement, extended producer responsibility and other initiatives. In this paper typical applications of LCM will be highlighted, and various entry gates and drivers will be discussed.

We are all stakeholders: Participatory decision-making and corporate sustainability.

Abstract: This paper is about extending stakeholder dialogue to include citizens in decision making which impacts on corporate sustainabilityolicy frameworks using the tools of regulation and economic instruments, and communication strategies, have a significant influence on the level of corporate sustainability. Involving citizens, through the use of deliberative and representative (participatory) processes, in the creation of these frameworks is an effective way of reducing the influence of self- or sectoral-interests in the development of policy. Moving beyond self-interest is an essential requirement in the creation of change towards sustainable futures, for example, in order to ensure the appropriate consideration of social and environmental externalities. This paper will describe the methodology and outcome of a process of participatory decision making in relation to a legislative review of an example of extended producer responsibility: a deposit and refund system on drink containers. We conducted a citizens’ jury and televote, and established a reference group containing the key stakeholders. This case study illustrates how self-interest amongst stakeholders creates resistance to implementation of a public policy initiative that increases the level of corporate sustainability. The participating citizens by contrast, in this case study and others, are able to put self interest aside in their deliberations. We are all stakeholders in creating sustainable futures. Participatory decision-making builds a mandate for change that can raise the level of corporate sustainability in a transparent and accountable way.

From ownership to service-based lifestyle: the case of joint use of power tools

Abstract: Current systems of production and consumption are based on mass production, average quality, and short life span of products. In the classical market economy, profitability depends on increasing rates of consumption of goods. The ownership for products is shifted from producers to consumers at the point of sale. There are, however, obvious problems with existing systems, as shown by eroding profit margins of many industry sectors, time lag between product design and marketing, and by requirements for extended producer responsibility for products beyond the point of sale (Mont 2001). Besides, constraints and limitations imposed by absorbing capacity of nature lead to obvious problem with making, using, and disposing of such an increasing number of products.

Exploring the Environmental Effectiveness of Extended Producer Responsibility Programmes An analysis of approaches to collective and individual responsibility for WEEE management in Sweden and the UK

Abstract: The purpose of this work is to enhance the understanding of how different approaches regarding the implementation of EPR programmes may contribute to environmental improvements. In order to meet this purpose, the following research question is explored: How may different approaches to collective and individual producer responsibility, implemented and/or envisioned by stakeholders, contribute to the achievement of the environmental objectives of EPR programmes? This study explores how EPR programmes for WEEE are implemented in Sweden and the UK, and how different stakeholders approach collective and individual producer responsibility. It includes the Swedish EPR programme implemented in 2001 and the ongoing implementation of the WEEE directive in the UK. Data collection is mainly based on interviews with selected stakeholders in Sweden and the UK. The results of the study show that there is limited focus on prevention and stimulation of eco-design in both Sweden and the UK. This may be related to the uncertainties in how to implement individual responsibility in practice. Collective responsibility seems to have a larger focus due to its potential for achieving the objectives of increased recycling and reduced disposal.

Cost of waste management versus competitiveness of mining: the example of non‐ferrous metal industry

Abstract: Large‐scale and long‐term mining operations inevitably produce a significant amount of waste. The volume and cost of mining waste produced depends on geological and technological characteristics such as: geological settings, reserve characteristics, the type of mining operation (surface or underground mine), mining methods (recovery, dilution, etc.), the volume of the operation, applied processing methods as well as waste management activities, tailing dump closure design and post‐closure cost. The other costs of waste management depend on countries' legislation. To identify all costs of waste management and to develop a transparent methodology for waste management full Life Cycle Assessment analysis (including Life Cycle Cost calculation) for an individual company should be prepared. The calculation and methodology of cost of waste management has been presented using the example of the Polish non‐ferrous mining industry.

Essays on extended producer responsibility and end of life vehicles

Abstract: The thesis examines the consequences of implementing extended producer responsibility (EPR for end of life vehicles (ELV). In year 2000 the European Union issued a directive demanding member to sta ...