Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR): A LATAM overview

Abstract

Every industrial production activity generates waste. The first residue that may come to mind is the post-industrial residue, which is a direct consequence of industrial activities. However, this is not the only one. Who is then responsible for the objects and their materiality after being used by the end-user?

For many years and in many contexts, this is a question that has been challenging to answer. Some will say that it is the consumer’s responsibility because of his/her purchase decision, or of the rubbish collector, since he/she is the one who must classify it. And to some extent, it might seem evident that it is a responsibility shared by various actors. However, a policy holds the producers responsible even when these materials have already passed through the consumers and end-users. It exists globally, and it is active in 11 countries of Latin America and the Caribbean!

This policy is called Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR). The term has been formally used since 1990 and coined in the LATAM and the Caribbean region since approximately 2005. The EPR gives the responsibility to the producer of different objects or materials, and these vary from country to country. Some, like Mexico, apply it only to toxic and special material, and others, like Colombia, use it for nine different products, including packagings made out of paper/cardboard, glass, metal, and plastics.

This document talks about the EPR implementation in the region, its opportunities and barriers, and how it is crucial to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals, especially number 12: Sustainable consumption and production.

Sustainable Development Goals Chart

Main Highlights

There is no clarity of who’s responsible for waste generation. However, media campaigns are constantly pointing the finger at the consumers.
To accomplish the SDG agenda for 2030, different actors must join forces and define more precise roles.
In 1990, the notion of Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) was introduced. From that moment, it has been developed and used as a crucial concept for policymaking.
Although EPR changes from country to country, it has the global aim to make producers responsible for what they produce even after it has been consumed.
Some Latin American and Caribbean countries have implemented EPR policies. Colombia is one of the pioneers regulating some objects like plastic, glass, paper/cardboard, and metal packaging.
The EPR is one powerful vehicle, if implemented well, for the fulfillment of SDG 12: Responsible Consumption and Production.
All actors must act together: even if producers have a “legal” responsibility, it is on the whole chain’s hands to help their initiatives succeed.
The implementation of the EPR is complex and variable. For this reason, ten main aspects act as barriers and opportunities for a successful implementation of the policy.

Case Overview

Climate change, waste overflood, and pollution are each day more visible and tangible for the world’s population. At the same time, our media is overloaded with information and data about these issues. For example, according to the World Meteorological Organization, 2011-2020 was the warmest decade on record, while plastic islands continue growing in the Pacific Ocean.

Continuing this path is extremely dangerous for the planet and every species that inhabits it. So, who should take responsibility for these problems?

For a long time, responsible acting has been encouraged in individuals. Consumers have been the target of publicity and campaigns. At the same time, initiatives like the Agenda 2030 for the SDGs encourage different kinds of actors to embrace the challenge together, including governments and industries.

There is one specific SDG, number 12, which talks about responsible consumption and production. Its purpose is to increase efficiency in the use of resources by reducing the impact on ecosystems. Reaching this goal needs clear public policies and a multi-stakeholder approach. EPR is one tool to get closer to achieve this SDG.

The concept of EPR was first introduced by academic Thomas Lindhqvist, back in 1990. Afterward, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) defined the concept as “an environmental policy approach in which a producer’s responsibility towards a product extends to the post-consumer stage of a product’s life cycle.”

The EPR policy has two main characteristics. First, it transfers the responsibility of waste generated from the municipalities to the producers. Second, it promotes ecodesign to think about materials from the product’s conception to avoid waste generation and logistics systems to guarantee the gathering of waste materials after consumption.

EPR in Latin America and the Caribbean

Eleven countries from LATAM and de Caribbean have EPR public policies. Responsible production is gaining importance, and platforms like the Basel Convention and the OECD have made it a requirement to become part of them. Among these 11 countries, five stand out because of their progress in EPR implementation: Colombia, Mexico, Argentina, Chile, and Brazil. This regulation aims to decrease waste going into landfills, estimated at 90% in the region (In Spanish).

Implementation in every country is different. Some countries, like Argentina, have specific policies for each material. While others, like Brazil, Colombia, Chile, and Mexico, have a more comprehensive approach that includes the whole EPR regulations and specific articles for each type of material.

As shown in figure 1, Colombia is the country with the most inclusive EPR policy. It began regulating toxic and dangerous waste, which was later modified and evolved into a framework decree regulating waste management from an EPR approach. By 2021, nine different elements have been included. For some of them, modifications have been made to improve the policy frequently.

Some of the shared conditions between the regulations of the different materials and countries are:

Guarantee recollection logistics.
Guarantee and finance campaigns that share information about the steps that a consumer must do to help one material fulfill its lifecycle and promote procedures for the return of waste.
Guarantee traceability of the materials to know for sure if the recovery material percentage of which producers are responsible is being reached.
Create the conditions for the valorization, treatment, or controlled final disposition of the materials.

It is essential to acknowledge that there is not only one way of implementing this policy, and its success depends on many factors that change from country to country, like ethnography, connectivity, culture, and processes.

One of the shared points that the experiences in LATAM implementation have is that having a unique framework has its perks. When working under an overall framework, countries can establish general guidelines that will maintain even if the material that is regulated changes. This also allows producers to know the “general rules” and start developing extended responsibility practices for materials that are not being regulated yet, thus helping them innovate and go one step further.

Additionally, the participation of international organizations, like the OECD, has catapulted the development and implementation of these policies, making it clear that this kind of involvement generates pressure and has helped the region to compare itself with international standards.

Impact Statement

The EPR as a public policy is an ally to define responsibility for waste management, commonly passed from hand to hand. Its central premise, “whoever pollutes, pays,” encourages ecodesign and articulates actors to ensure that less rubbish is generated. This regulation’s crucial detail is how the first regulated materials are usually post-industrial and not post-consumer. The difference is that for post-industrial materials, it is easier to design logistics strategies and post-industrial plans since all waste can be more easily gathered in common places by waste

management organizations. The case is different for post-consumer materials that imply collecting waste from person to person, not from industry to industry.

In 2018 the pilot of resolution 1407 of “EPR for Containers and Packaging” in Colombia entered into force, and in 2021 its implementation began to be mandatory. This new element included within the EPR represents challenges that differ from the other materials since Containers and Packagings are elements that are widely spread among individual consumers. Thus, this makes logistics an enormous challenge, encouraging producers to focus their efforts on redesigning these elements and reducing waste from the product’s conception. The materials that are taken into account in this regulation are cardboard/paper, glass, metal, and plastics.

EPR has encouraged cities and industries to work together to strengthen recycling infrastructure and innovate in production materials, design, and techniques. This policy, well implemented, has the power to transform linear production into a more circular one. Additionally, it helps countries go further in the achievement of SDG 12, especially:

12.2 (“By 2030, achieve the sustainable management and efficient use of natural resources”);
12.4 (“By 2020, achieve the environmentally sound management of chemicals and all wastes throughout their life cycle, by agreed international frameworks, and significantly reduce their release to air, water and soil to minimize their adverse impacts on human health and the environment”), and;
12.5 (“By 2030, substantially reduce waste generation through prevention, reduction, recycling, and reuse”).

The EPR scheme facilitates the transition of the production system towards the circularity of materials, where resources are intended to maintain their value throughout the product’s useful life.

Systems Perspective

Although the idea behind the EPR has good intentions, and even if the paperwork is good enough, this policy has the risk of staying only on paper, as it happens relatively often with these kinds of things. For this reason, analyzing the whole system is crucial, and taking into account every factor is the key to a successful implementation of the EPR policy.

Ten key aspects represent opportunities and barriers in the correct implementation of EPR policies, and these are:

Participative process: Having strategies that help every actor in the chain get involved and motivated, for example, by offering co-creative spaces where the normative, implementation, and revision can be analyzed and develop together.
Umbrella framework: Some countries, as seen above, begin with an umbrella framework for the EPR. Some others do not. Implementing this umbrella framework helps to standardize the normative and makes it easier for producers to innovate and go further in the law.
International cooperation: It has been seen in the implementation of the EPR in the LATAM context that international cooperation helps implement it because of the external eyes monitoring the process.
Context: Every country has a different context, different levels of connection among actors, difficulties of strengthening in logistics, culture, socioeconomic reality, among others. Each one of these issues can change the results of implementation drastically. For this reason, it is vital to understand the context where it is being implemented.
Inclusion: The system can be more potent if every actor is included, especially recyclers whose role is crucial in the chain.
Actors: Knowing the different actors that get affected by this policy is crucial for the correct implementation. These are the actors that the EPR identifies as part of the chain: Producer, Manufacturer, Importer, Registrant, Distributor, Carrier, Marketer, Supplier, Consumer, Industrial Consumer, End-user, Manager, Receiver, Operator, Recycler, Public urban cleaning and solid waste management service, Authorized collection and recycling companies, Enforcement Authority, Competent Authorities, Municipalities, and Public sector.
Financing: Having clarity of where the money for implementation will come from. Even if the producer is economically responsible for implementation, there are different models to do it. One of the most common ways in LATAM is the creation of consortia among them.
Decentralization: As said before, every context is different, and this rule also applies in various locations within a country.
Effective communication: People must learn about the normative. Everyone is part of this chain, and having information can make more people work together to reduce waste production.
Measuring systems: Adding up to effective communication is gathering information, and for this to happen, there is the need for transparent measuring systems. Data and information are the main ingredients for indicators to tell the governments and interested people if the implementation is successful or if it needs to be strengthened.

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Article by: Sara Gómez Gómez and Lucas Sanchez M, 4REVS researchers (and more)