Extended producer responsibility has become an important tool to foster the enforcement of circular economy requirements on the European Union policies playing as a connective tissue between different legislative and policy fields. The Commission considers EPR as an approach to ensure that producers contribute financially to the costs of waste management.
EPR has been seen as an economic instrument to stimulate better product design in order to reduce waste management costs. Besides product design EPR puts an obligation on producers to take operational responsibility for the end-of-life phase of their products. This study has focused on EPR and what it means for the fibre-based packaging sector. The research has answered to the question of how the EU regulates EPR in the sector.
Additionally, the paper has compared theories behind EPR between the EPR practice in the EU regulations. The study focused on the Waste Directive, the Packaging and Packaging Waste Directive and the SUPD which all have relevance on the fibre-based packaging sector.
In theory there can be several principles guiding EPR but in practice there is only one:
polluter pays. The polluter is a producer of a product and therefore the principle seems to be very strong also in the legislation. In fact, the three Directives focused on the study only refer to polluter pays principle. The principle is also a connection between EPR and environmental damages. Both the theory and practice highlight the environmental protection which can be done with the help of EPR.
Theoretically there are five different responsibilities of EPR. The first is ownership which sometimes can be connected to property rights of a product stating that a manufacturer of a product retains the ownership throughout the product’s lifecycle. In the Waste Directive ownership means a holder or a producer of a product, but in the context of EPR the producer is a professional who develops, manufactures, processes, treats, sells or imports products. In the Packaging and Packaging Waste Directive there is an economic operator referring to many sorts of actors and therefore ownership is harder to recognize. In the SUPD ownership is seen widely since a producer can refer to so many persons in the product’s value chain.
The second responsibility, financial responsibility, refers to a producer’s responsibility to cover all or a part of the expenses regarding, for example, collection, recycling or disposal of the product. Financial responsibility is stated as costs for the producer to bear. The responsibility appears in covering the costs of waste management although the Waste Directive as a framework directive provides also another alternative, namely financial and operational responsibility. The Packaging and Packaging Waste Directive refers to the Waste Directive in financial responsibility but the SUPD sets additional costs, such as cleaning up litter, for producers.
The third responsibility, physical responsibility, characterizes a system where a producer is involved in the management of the product and its effects throughout the lifecycle. Whereas in the Waste Directive ownership can be seen rather physical, the Packaging and Packaging Waste Directive seems to lack physical responsibility. The SUPD refers to physical responsibility stronger in various ways, such as widening the definition of a producer and highlighting waste management costs. Liability as a fourth responsibility refers to environmental damages caused by the product of the producer. In the Directives liability is presented at a general level, however, the SUPD lists products which are harmful for the environment. The fifth responsibility is informative referring to product labelling and providing information of the product. In the Packaging and Packaging Waste Directive this responsibility can be seen as information for consumers to recycle the package but in the SUPD raising awareness measures is written as requirements for producers. Interestingly, the responsibility under the Waste Directive refers to the Member States and their duty to provide information for producers about waste.
A successful EPR requires several policy elements since one element alone cannot guarantee success. Product selection mechanism means either a separate EPR regulation to target a particular product or an EPR law which has a role as a framework mechanism. The Waste Directive is a framework for the Packaging and Packaging Waste Directive and for the SUPD. However, both Directives provide a selection of products referring to product-by-product approach: the Packaging and Packaging Waste Directive to all sorts of packaging and the SUPD to the listed products. The most common used element in the EPR policy is take-back mechanism which occurs at the end-of-life stage of a product by establishing
recycling and collection targets for a product or material. The Waste Directive states that product take-back can be done either by an individual producer or by a PRO which both are also options for the other two Directives.
Take-back mechanisms are closely linked to product recovery and performance goals referring to reuse and recycling of a product with measurable targets. Although there are no measurable targets in the Waste Hierarchy for certain waste stream, the Waste Directive provides a hierarchy for waste which is then used in the Packaging and Packaging Waste Directive and in the SUPD as a sort of base line. The Packaging and Packaging Waste Directive sets minimum targets by weight for recycling for certain materials, such as paper and cardboard. The targets must be met in 2025 and 2030. The SUPD prefers consumption reduction for certain products, such as cups for beverages. The baseline for consumption is 2022: the consumption in 2026 cannot surpass the consumption in 2022.
Product design goals are a part of EPR elements as reminding producers of a holistic from cradle to grave approach of products. The main idea of product design goals is that producers must design environmentally friendly products and that consumers must support this by purchasing such products. Product design goals are not included in any of the Directives in a matter which would concern fibre-based packaging sector. Although the Packaging and Packaging Waste Directive states of designing packaging material which is, for example, lighter, the Directives do not encourage producers to product design. This seems to be in conflict with bioeconomy aims which encourage to use renewable materials but, for instance, the SUPD counts materials with some plastic into plastic products and does not encourage to design products from other material.
The last elements of EPR are enforcement and penalties which are important to ensure that producers comply EPR requirements. In the Waste Framework Directive enforcement is mostly voluntary321: the Member States can decide whether producers are to be responsible for waste management. However, the Packaging and Packaging Waste Directive and the SUPD state that EPR is mandatory. Although there seems to be a lack of requirements of
321 E.g. EPR will become obligatory under the SUPD by the end of 2024.
EPR in the Packaging and Packaging Waste Directive, the SUPD states clearly which obligations belong to producers. Some of the obligations seem rather wide and hard to fulfill in real life, such as cleaning up litter from public waste, and therefore the costs for waste management of products can be hard to individualize for each producer. It might be possible that in the future the costs are covered by environmental protection tax instead of individual costs for producers for covering waste management. Penalties are covered only in the SUPD.
The Annex 1 provides a table of each responsibility, principle and element of EPR in theory and in the Directives.
The definition of single-use plastic product and the product lists in the Annex of the SUPD are most likely to be difficult for fibre-based packaging sector. The Directive is very tight by categorizing products for reduction and, at the end, banning consumption of certain products. This is argued by an environmental idea that the products are at the top ten most found items on the beaches of Europe because people discard them instead of recycling.
However, the top ten list is not as genuine as it is argued to be. For example, the products listed in the Directive and made of plastic are among the top ten, but once the main component of the same product is fibre-based, these products are far from the top ten. The product-oriented legislation will probably have difficulties to be fulfilled in any other way than through environmental protection tax for producers. A tax which then will be put into the costs of products for consumers to pay for. Whether this is going to change consumption habits or to save marine environment remains to be seen.
EPR THEORY WASTE
ELEMENTS • product
Annex 1. EPR responsibilities, principles, and elements concerning the fibre-based packaging sector in theory, the Waste Directive, the Packaging and Packaging Waste Directive and the SUPD.