Extended producer responsibility

About: Extended producer responsibility is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 1120 publications have been published within this topic receiving 26805 citations. The topic is also known as: EPR.

Waste interfaces: biodegradable waste, municipal policy and everyday practice

Abstract: Recent years have seen a rapid rise in the political saliency of the ever growing volumes of municipal waste produced in the UK. In this paper, we examine how one particular part of the municipal waste stream – biodegradable waste – has come under the policy spotlight. As targets to divert biodegradable waste from landfill under the Landfill Directive come into force, the need to focus explicitly on recovering value from biodegradable materials has risen up national and local policy agendas, not least with the introduction of the Landfill Allowance Trading Scheme. Accompanying this new rationality for managing waste has been a suite of different policy interventions. In this paper we examine the impact of the changing nature of municipal waste policy and the ways in which it has sought to rework the disposal and collection of biodegradable waste. We argue that the predominantly technical framing and instrumental rationality of these interventions does not sufficiently challenge entrenched understandings regarding the boundaries between public and private responsibility for waste, and thus short-circuits their capacity to engage with everyday community/individual waste practices. In conclusion, we suggest that, in order to move waste management towards sustainability, there is a need both to engage with the institutional and infrastructural dimensions of the systems of provision within which waste management occurs, and to take seriously the everyday contexts within which making waste is practiced.

A comparative study of E-waste recycling systems in Japan, South Korea and Taiwan from the EPR perspective Implications for developing countries

Abstract: Chung, Sung-Woo; Rie, Murakami-Suzuki.2008.A comparative study of E-waste recycling systems in Japan, South Korea and Taiwan from the EPR perspective,Reports,[Chiba]Institute of Developing Economies, Japan External Trade Organization,21

Extended Product Responsibility: An Economic Assessment of Alternative Policies

Abstract: Extended Product Responsibility embodies the notion that agents along a product chain should share responsibility for the life-cycle environmental impacts of the product, including those associated with ultimate disposal. Extended Producer Responsibility is a narrower concept which places responsibility on producers and focuses primarily on post-consumer waste disposal. Manufacturer "take-back" requirements are the policy lever most often associated with Extended Producer Responsibility. In this paper, the authors discuss alternative incentive-based policies that are consistent with the objectives of Extended Product and Producer Responsibility. They argue that an upstream combined product tax and recycling subsidy (UCTS) is generally more cost-effective and imposes fewer transactions costs than the take-back approach. They also consider the strengths and weaknesses of a policy not targeted at producers: unit-based pricing of residential waste collection and disposal. The authors find that this option shows potential for achieving non-trivial reductions in solid waste. Widespread application in the U.S. of a $1.00 charge per 32-gallon bag could reduce total municipal solid waste disposed by approximately 13 percent per year.