Recycling Principles Endorsement

Principles To Guide Effective Recycling Policy

EPR is a legal framework that shifts responsibility for waste management from general taxpayers to producers and users. It focuses on results, and gives brand-owners the flexibility to determine the most cost-effective means to achieve them.

• Internalize Costs. When pollution and waste costs are externalized, pollution and waste increases. But when those costs are internalized by establishing specific cradle-to-cradle goals, businesses and consumers are rewarded for reducing these costs.
• Producer Financing. Because producers set front-end design specifications, they are best positioned to pay the external costs, and have the best opportunity and incentive to reduce them.
• Producer Management. Government may set the performance standards of EPR and hold industry accountable for achieving those goals, but producers are best positioned to design and manage the program to achieve those goals, so they can accrue the cost savings from reducing waste.