GC_epr

Green Cars

End-of-Life Vehicle Management: Extended Producer Responsibility
A Strategic Principle for Pollution Prevention

Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) is an emerging pollution prevention and waste management principle that focuses on product systems rather than production facilities.

Under current environmental regulations, a manufacturing facility is responsible for the environmental impacts of its activities; this responsibility does not cover environmental impacts from the products it manufactures. Using the principle of EPR, product manufacturers are responsible for the total life-cycle environmental impact of their products, from raw materials extraction and manufacturing to use and disposal (i.e., the product system). The aim of EPR is to encourage producers to prevent pollution and reduce resource and energy consumption at each stage of the product's life cycle.

Using EPR to prevent pollution and conserve resources requires a variety of tools. Examples are partnership agreements with suppliers, consumers, or others; mandatory or voluntary product labeling and disclosure of environmental information; government procurement policies; deposit-refund systems; product take-back programs; product stewardship programs; Design-for-Recyclability; leasing systems; and life-cycle management programs. These tools are meant to encourage product manufacturers to consider the entire life cycle of their products.

Product design and process specifications put producers in the best position to address all the impacts of a product's life cycle. Examples of these designs and specifications are the following:

Materials selection – Manufacturing a part or product from nontoxic, renewable, recyclable, and/or recycled materials minimizes its environmental impacts, beginning with the raw materials extraction and processing life-cycle stage.

Process specifications – Specifying ways that a manufacturing facility and its suppliers can prevent pollution minimizes environmental impacts, beginning with the manufacturing stage of a product's life cycle.

Product design – Using as few materials as possible while optimizing a product's performance and considering recycle and disposal options minimizes environmental impacts, beginning with the product-use and end-of-life management stages of a product's life cycle.

In the United States, the principle of extended product responsibility is an adaptation of the EPR principle. Rather than emphasizing the responsibility of the primary manufacturer, as extended producer responsibility does, extended product responsibility implies shared responsibility among all actors involved in a product's life cycle. Under this adaptation, manufacturers, suppliers, users, maintainers, and disposers of a product share responsibility for the environmental effects throughout its life cycle. The greater the ability of any of those responsible to influence the life-cycle impacts of a product, the more responsibility it should assume for addressing those impacts. Unfortunately, extended product responsibility, does not clearly define these roles, and so responsibility may not be assigned to those with the greatest ability to effect change.

To learn more about extended producer/product responsibility and the tools used for this strategy, read the following publications:

Extended Producer Responsibility: What Does It Mean? Where Is It Headed? An article written by Bette K. Fishbein and published in Pollution Prevention Review (Vol. 8, No. 4, Oct. 1998).

Extended Product Responsibility: A New Principle for Product-Oriented Pollution Prevention This is a report completed by the Center for Clean Products and Clean Technologies, and published in 1997 by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Sustainable America: A New Consensus for the Future (from the National Archives) As part of this report published by President Clinton's Council on Sustainable Development, Chapter 2 includes an endorsement for extended product responsibility.

Return to End-of-Life Vehicle Management

Return to Green Car Home Page