New Aspects of EPR: Extending Producer Responsibility to Additional Product Groups and the Challenges Across the Product Life Cycle

Introduction and basic concepts of EPR

Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) is an environmental policy approach in which a producer's responsibility for a product is extended to the post-consumer stage.

The purpose of EPR is to raise recycling rates and cut waste by shifting the cost of end-of-life management from local government to the producers and consumers of the product.

EPR policy instruments may include product take-back requirements, Advance Disposal Fees (ADF), or product taxes combined with subsidies for waste management³.

Since the 1990s, EPR has become widespread, particularly in the European Union (EU) for products such as waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE), batteries, accumulators and vehicles⁴. The success of EPR in raising material recovery rates has prompted discussion of extending it to additional product groups.

Benefits and challenges of EPR

The paper identifies four main benefits of implementing EPR⁶:

• Cost recovery: EPR shifts the financial responsibility for waste management from local government to producers.
• Separate collection: EPR can enable or improve separate collection of waste that causes problems if mixed into the general waste stream.
• Material recovery: EPR policies usually carry targets or incentives to raise collection and recycling rates. There is evidence that implementing EPR has increased recycling rates, for example in Portugal, Spain and the Republic of Korea.
• Design for the environment: EPR encourages producers to invest in product design that reduces environmental impact. Evidence for this benefit is limited, however, mainly because EPR schemes are usually organised collectively, with no direct link between product design and the fee payable¹². More recently some countries have begun modulating EPR fees to create better design incentives — in France, for instance, fees are doubled for non-recyclable materials.

Extending EPR to new product groups

The success of EPR in traditional sectors has opened a debate about extending it to new product groups, including:

• Commonly littered products: cigarette filters and fishing gear, for example¹⁵. In San Francisco, an EPR scheme for cigarette filters helped offset clean-up costs and improved street cleanliness scores.
• High-volume or high-impact waste streams: including food waste, textiles and construction and demolition waste (C&DW).

1. Plastics (beyond packaging)

The EU Single-Use Plastics Directive requires member states to implement EPR for certain plastic products frequently found in litter surveys.

• Cigarette filters: among the most common single-use plastic litter items.
• Fishing gear and commercial equipment: countries such as Norway and Denmark already run voluntary schemes allowing fishers to return old gear.
• Other plastic products: including wet wipes, cutlery and other single-use items.

2. Textiles (clothing, carpets and mattresses)

Textiles account for a significant and growing share of municipal waste streams.

• EPR schemes: several countries have adopted EPR for textiles; in France a voluntary scheme became mandatory in 2012. In the United States, California operates a carpet stewardship programme.
• Benefits and considerations: EPR schemes have created finance for textile collection and recycling. Recovered material is, however, mostly used in low-value applications such as insulation.

3. The construction sector

Construction has a very large material and energy footprint, accounting for roughly 30% of natural resource extraction and 25% of global solid waste.

• EPR schemes: some markets have applied EPR policy to C&DW. In the United States, for example, programmes for paint and flat glass collect EPR fees to fund collection and recycling.
• Benefits and considerations: these programmes help recover hazardous materials such as VOC-containing paint and improve collection of higher-value materials such as flat glass.

4. Food waste (cooking oil and commercial food waste)

• Used cooking oil: improper disposal pollutes the environment and blocks sewer systems. Countries such as Belgium, France and Italy require producers to manage the waste stream from their products.
• Commercial food waste: rules require large food waste generators to send their waste to composting, anaerobic digestion or animal feed facilities³². Although not designed to raise public revenue, these programmes can stimulate demand for private waste collection and treatment services.

Extending the scope of producer responsibility

There is also debate about extending producer responsibility to additional categories of impact, beyond covering domestic end-of-life costs alone.

1. Covering mitigation costs: litter and pollution clean-up

• Littering: EPR can require producers to contribute to the cost of litter clean-up. The United Kingdom, for instance, has proposed EPR fees to fund litter management activities³⁵.
• Microparticle pollution: EPR could be considered as a way to fund measures reducing pollution from synthetic microfibres (from textiles, for example) and tyre particles, particularly upgrades to municipal wastewater treatment plants.

2. Encouraging design for the environment

EPR can encourage producers to design more sustainable products.

• Recycled content: EPR fees can be modulated to lower charges for products with a higher post-consumer recycled content.
• Extending product life: EPR fees can be modulated according to a product's durability, reparability and reusability³⁸. In France, for example, the EPR fee for furniture can be reduced if the product is easy to disassemble or designed for repair.

3. Extending the geographic scope of EPR

Traditional EPR focuses on domestic costs. Many products, however — used vehicles, electronics and second-hand textiles — are exported to other markets where they become waste, outside the scope of the original producer's responsibility. This creates a "financial externality" in which EPR fees are collected but do not follow the product to where it is finally treated⁴¹.

Conclusions and assessment

Extending EPR to new product groups and new categories of impact brings opportunities, but also challenges.

Opportunities:

• Shifting end-of-life management costs from the public sector to producers and consumers.
• Improving collection and material recovery rates.
• Creating a stable source of finance for waste collection and treatment programmes.

Challenges:

• Identifying the producer: deciding who is liable for the EPR fee can be contentious — for fishing gear, for instance, it might be the equipment manufacturer or the vessel owner.
• Setting fees: determining EPR fees transparently and fairly is difficult, especially where data is lacking.
• Limits of EPR: EPR is not always the most suitable policy⁴⁷. Where consumer behaviour is the main cause of the environmental impact (littering, for example), other policies such as tougher penalties may be more effective. In some cases, where reducing the end-of-life impact lies outside a producer's expertise (upgrading wastewater treatment infrastructure, say), a general fee or tax may be more appropriate.

OECD study, full reference: OECD Environment Working Paper No. 225

EPR in Viet Nam: from policy to action

In Viet Nam, EPR policy has been firmly institutionalised through the 2020 Law on Environmental Protection and detailed in Decree 08/2022/ND-CP. These instruments have created a solid legal framework requiring producers and importers to meet recycling and waste treatment obligations for certain product and packaging groups.

Decree 08/2022/ND-CP specifies the product groups that businesses must recycle (batteries and accumulators, tyres and inner tubes, lubricating oil, electrical and electronic products, packaging) and the products for which they must fund waste treatment (plant protection products, nappies, sanitary pads, chewing gum, tobacco). Businesses may choose to organise collection and recycling themselves or to contribute financially to the Viet Nam Environment Protection Fund.

The spirit of extension in the draft EPR decree

To improve the policy further, Viet Nam is drafting a new EPR decree in a spirit of extension and sustainability. According to an article on the portal of the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment (mae.gov.vn), the draft decree will separate all EPR provisions into a standalone legal instrument, providing a clear and coherent basis for implementation.

That spirit of extension is not only about updating the list of products; it also shows in the encouragement for businesses to recycle themselves and engage more deeply in the circular value chain. The draft also focuses on financial support mechanisms for local authorities in waste treatment and places particular emphasis on transparent management and digitalised data. This shows Viet Nam working to build a solid legal foundation, not merely to deal with waste but to drive the sustainable development of the recycling industry, turning EPR into a strategic lever for the circular economy. One important condition for the success of EPR policy in Viet Nam is continued refinement of the legal framework — a process that requires cooperation and in-depth exchange among many parties.

The EPR decree is still being refined, and for the policy to be implemented as effectively as possible in Viet Nam's context, a multidisciplinary group of experts should be involved. That group should include international experts with experience from countries that have implemented EPR successfully, domestic policymakers and specialists who understand the particularities of Viet Nam's market and environment, and representatives of the businesses directly affected. Workshops and in-depth discussions would help gather expert opinion, resolve potential obstacles and build a transparent, workable mechanism that delivers lasting benefits for both the environment and the economy.