Definitions for "Extended Producer Responsibility"
Keywords:  epr, oecd, disposal, eol, lifecycle
a requirement that the original producer of an item is responsible for ensuring its proper disposal.
A notion that places responsibility on producers and focuses primarily on post-consumer waste disposal. Manufacturer "take-back" requirements are the policy lever most often associated with Extended Producer Responsibility.
Extended producer responsibility (EPR) is a strategy that imposes producer accountability over the entire lifecycle of its products, including the stages after consumption. The strategy’s aims are: 1) to shift the physical and economic responsibility of end-of-life products upstream to the producer; and 2) to give the producer an incentive for considering the environment starting at a product’s design stage. In March 2001, the OECD published an EPR Guidance Manual for its member countries to provide guidelines for creating a recycling-based society. Back to glossary index