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An International Effort

The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, which has 38 member countries, was founded in 1961 to bring about economic progress and world trade. In 1994, it launched an effort to implement the concept of Extended Producer Responsibility. Today, nearly every member country, including the United States, has implemented at least one Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) program.

But what is extended producer responsibility? Well, it is also referred to as product stewardship, and is both a concept and a policy approach to issues related to the treatment or disposal of products at the post-consumer phase of their useful life. It’s based on the idea that producers should bear a significant financial and/or physical responsibility for keeping their products out of the waste stream. It also encompasses the notion that producers can prevent waste at the source by treating waste reduction as a design principle and incentivizes them for doing so. Municipalities can’t do that. They can only mitigate environmental impact at the disposal stage. Only manufacturers can design and produce environmentally safer products in the first place.

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What is Extended Producer Responsibility?

The basic premise is that manufacturers and importers should take responsibility for the impact their products have on the environment from selection and sourcing of materials through the production process and continuing on through the use of those products to the end of their useful life and eventual disposal. This responsibility extends to:

• Minimizing upstream environmental impacts associated with resource extraction through design choices related to materials
• Minimizing waste generated throughout the manufacturing process by applying environmentally-conscious process design principles
• Minimizing downstream environmental impacts related to product use and disposal by anticipating and designing with those eventualities in mind (e.g., designing products to be disassembled into component parts)
• Accepting a certain amount of legal, physical, or financial responsibility for environmental impacts that can’t be designed out of products

EPR Legislation in the United States

Many states have enacted legislation to implement EPR regulations with regard to certain products, such as paint, batteries, carpeting, mattresses, and electronics. For instance, some states have laws requiring paint manufacturers to develop programs making it easy for consumers to recycle unused paint, which can be reused as is, made into new paint, or repurposed. In these states, retailers charge consumers purchasing paint a small recycling fee, which a nonprofit product stewardship organization subsequently uses to recycle or otherwise manage the leftover paint.

Current Status of EPR Regulation

As of 2022, 33 states have at least one EPR mandate; some also have local mandates. Current EPR regulations cover materials in these categories:

• Appliances containing refrigerants
• Auto switches
• Batteries
• Carpet
• Electronics and cell phones
• Fluorescent lighting