Topic Sheet: Extended Producer Responsibility

Extended producer responsibility (EPR) schemes have been applied to many sectors and products; for plastics, they refer to schemes where industry players who place packaging or other plastics in the market pay a fee that is used to collect, sort and recycle the materials. EPR schemes are considered one of the proven pathways to provide the required funding for collecting and processing of plastic packaging after use at scale; they are a practical implementation of the ‘Polluter Pays Principle’. The widespread adoption of EPR across the entire plastics economy is one of the highest policy priorities for achieving circularity targets. At present, EPR schemes are predominantly used for collection and recycling: their expansion to broader goals including re-design towards reduction and reuse should be encouraged.