Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) is an environmental policy approach under which the responsibility of producers or in some cases importers or sellers, is extended to include the environmental impact of the product with the objective of putting the Polluter Pays Principle into practice.
The EPR schemes can be differently constructed depending on the type of product and market but can include voluntary or mandatory provisions for the producer to bear the costs for collection, waste management, consumer information and sustainable design.
EPR is often described as a policy instrument with good potential to mobilize private funding to improve resource efficiency and waste management of different product types. It is, for instance, often mentioned as a key measure to transform the largely linear global plastics economy towards a more circular one in the ongoing discussions about the envisaged global instrument to end plastic pollution.
The ideas of EPR, and other instruments to mobilize funding, in the new global instrument have been described in two previous Nordic reports: Possible elements to a global agreement on plastic pollutions and Global agreement to prevent plastic pollution - exploring financing needs and opportunities. The reports conclude on the one hand that EPR is one of the most prominent instruments to mobilize private resources for plastic waste collection and management, and to promote circularity by encouraging sustainable product design. On the other hand, the reports also emphasize that development of EPR schemes comes with many challenges and that it needs to be accompanied by supporting policies.
The Nordic countries have extensive experience of EPR. Sweden, for example, introduced EPR in the nineties and have today established EPR schemes for several product categories including packaging, tires, cars, electronics, batteries, and a number of single use plastic products. These schemes include obligations for producers to design packaging and products that are recyclable, as well as provisions for the producers to bear the costs for information, collection, sorting, recycling and clean up.
2.1 Scope and delimitations
The aim of this report is to gather experiences from the Nordic countries' long history of EPR as a government policy instrument and create learnings for future development and expansion of EPR schemes in the Nordic countries and other countries in the world. Specific issues of the project include, but are not limited to:
What does the current landscape of EPR schemes of plastic products look like in the Nordic countries? What products are covered by EPR schemes and how are the schemes implemented?
What kind of obstacles have the countries met when implementing EPR schemes for plastic products? And what can we learn from them?
What are the factors for a successful implementation of EPR schemes that have a positive impact on the transition to a circular plastic economy and reduced plastic pollution?
The project builds upon previous Nordic reports and provide more detailed and practical advice on how to create national EPR schemes that works for the industry and have real impact on the transition to a circular plastics economy and reduced plastic pollution. More specifically, the analysis investigates how the EU Waste Framework Directive, specifically the Packaging and Packaging Waste Directive (94/62/EC) and the Single-Use Plastics Directive (2019/904), are implemented in each country with a particular focus on reducing waste and littering. As focus is on plastic packaging and single-use plastic products, other subordinate waste regulations to the EU Waste Framework directive fall outside the scope of this report.
2.2 Method
Literature review and semi- structured interviews were used to collect and map information about ERP schemes for plastic products in the Nordic countries Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden. The literature review builds upon previous Nordic reports and includes scientific reports as well as website information and reports from Nordic authorities.
Supplementing the literature review, four interviews were conducted with actors responsible for implementing EPR in each of the Nordic countries. The interviews aimed to collect insights into the implementation of EPR, including challenges and success factors. The interviews followed a semi-structured format, based on an interview guide with guiding questions with room for follow-up questions. A list of the interviewed authorities can be found in References.
An analysis was made based on results from literature and interviews that investigates compliance levels and how different actors in the economy are affected. Commonalities and differences between the different countries are also analyzed with the aim to identify factors of success and barriers to EPR in the Nordic countries.