Extended producer responsibility and a global plastics treaty – what do the experts say?

In November 2024, delegates from 175 countries will convene in Busan, Republic of Korea, for the fifth and final session of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee to draft an international legally binding treaty on plastic pollution, referred to as the global plastics treaty.

Over the last two years, four negotiation rounds have yielded a wealth of options for the treaty, from plastic product design to waste management.

In Busan, negotiators face the challenge of refining these options into a coherent treaty that countries can ratify.

Extended producer responsibility (EPR) has been a focal point in discussions on the international legally binding instrument. EPR holds producers accountable for their products’ lifecycle, especially after consumer use.

Germany, France, Sweden, Japan and Canada (British Columbia) have long implemented EPR with varied success.

EPR systems generally require producers to pay fees to fund waste collection and management, with some countries adjusting fees to encourage eco-friendly packaging. Others have incorporated informal waste pickers into formal roles, compensating them for collection and sorting efforts.

The Business Coalition for a Global Plastics Treaty unites over 200 companies with a shared vision and a joint call for the treaty to include an obligation at the national level to advance targets and systems for collection, reuse and recycling based on common definitions and key principles for EPR regulations.

Similarly, the Consumer Goods Forum in 2020 published a shared perspective of 40 leaders from manufacturing and retailing packaged goods on the guiding principles and key design parameters they feel are required for optimal EPR programmes.

Below, we bring to you several expert views on how EPR should feature in the final text of a global plastics treaty:

Although discussions will continue ahead and during INC-5, it is important to recall the following main principles to ensure an effective inclusion of EPR in the international legally binding instrument:

EPR has become a critical focus in South Africa’s waste management strategies, prioritizing paper, packaging, and other single-use plastics, as well as electrical and lighting equipment.

A unique intervention expressed through the South African EPR regulations is an emphasis on integrating waste pickers in the implementation of EPR. This entails paying service fees to waste pickers who participate in the collection and recycling networks of EPR.

The international legally binding instrument should include provisions to support the establishment of EPR systems in developing countries, ensuring that they can manage plastic waste effectively.

Member states can include a Global EPR Framework in the instrument’s text to outline minimum standards and harmonize standards for EPR systems for plastic packaging and other products, preventing companies from moving production to countries with no regulation.

The treatment on EPR could involve mandating financial transfers, technology sharing, and capacity-building to enhance waste management infrastructure. In addition, it is critical that a transparent and participatory monitoring process through constant reporting and verification is employed.

In South Africa, interim and annual reports are mandatory for constant monitoring. The monitoring outcomes have enabled South African policymakers to amend the regulations confidently to ensure the effective implementation of the EPR regulations.

The EPR framework in the international legally binding instrument could also encourage eco-modulation of fees, where producers that use more sustainable materials and design recyclable products pay lower fees than those using difficult-to-recycle plastics.

Multilateral environmental agreements have often failed to achieve their objectives due to a lack of financing for developing countries. There is a very large financing gap to end plastic pollution, which makes private sector contributions “vital” alongside public financing.

The chair’s draft, therefore, includes a plastic polymer fee and EPR as innovative means of leveraging private financing. The fee and EPR are complementary. They ensure fair burden sharing across the plastics value chain: with the fee, a small charge is collected upstream from primary polymer producers, while EPR collects from mid- and downstream companies.

Most of the fee revenue would flow to developing countries, whereas EPR revenues would be used domestically. The fee could finance or de-risk upfront capital costs of waste management infrastructure in developing countries, whereas EPR typically covers the operating costs of waste management.

The fee could also finance other critical activities, from cleaning up legacy plastic pollution to supporting a just and inclusive transition for people and industries in developing countries.

Both can be implemented in the treaty. For the fee, one provision would establish the essential features of the fee to be collected from producers under national law; a second would earmark the use of revenues; and a third would integrate fee revenues into the overall financing mechanism.

For EPR, a provision could call on all countries to maintain EPR for plastic waste based on minimum agreed-upon standards. In both cases, the Conference of the Parties (COP meetings) would play an important role later in fleshing out requirements and standards.

Emerging markets need references from countries similarly hard hit by the plastic pollution crisis. The Philippines shows that an EPR law can be implemented quickly with ambitious targets. It requires companies to take responsibility for an increasing percentage of their plastic footprint – measured in weight – from 20% in 2023 to 80% in 2028.

It has six upstream measures to reduce its footprint and six downstream measures to recover it, including plastic credits, a market-based mechanism that facilitates the immediate cleanup of plastic waste and long-term investment in much-needed waste management infrastructure.

The increasing cost of credits incentivizes companies to reduce their plastic footprint, which is not always built into “classical” EPR schemes.

The Philippines offers a case study for other countries and UN negotiators to boldly and urgently address the problem, considering innovative approaches and voices from the Global South – moving fast, with ambitious targets and investment mechanisms.