By Thierry Sanders, Founder, of Kolekt Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) is gaining traction globally as a vital policy tool to tackle the growing challenge of waste management. The principle is simple yet powerful: the companies that introduce products and packaging into the market should bear the financial and/or physical responsibility for their post-consumer fate. For […]
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By Thierry Sanders, Founder of KOLEKT A seemingly technical detail in Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) regulation holds the key to its success or failure: how producers declare the packaging they put on the market. Two approaches are vying for policymakers’ attention: The first, simpler at first glance, asks companies to report the total weight (in […]
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By Kolekt Director, Thierry Sanders. Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) schemes, designed to make manufacturers shoulder the burden of managing their products’ post-consumer fate, are increasingly seen as a vital tool in the fight against the global waste crisis. Yet, in many emerging economies, an unlikely antagonist is undermining their effectiveness: Value Added Tax (VAT). This seemingly innocuous […]
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Whose Rubbish Is It Anyway? The Battle for Control of Extended Producer Responsibility Regulations. By Kolekt Director, Thierry Sanders. The bins overflow, the landfills bulge, and the tide of discarded packaging, electronics, and textiles continues to rise. In response, Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) – a system holding producers accountable for the post-consumer fate of their […]
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The global spotlight on national waste legislation is intensifying, and Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) stands at the forefront. EPR offers a compelling solution for financing sustainable waste management, embodying the ‘polluter pays’ principle. Simply put, EPR mandates that producers, importers, and brands take responsibility for the lifecycle of their products, either by directly managing waste […]
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By Maria Accioly, Pedro Succar and Thierry Sanders Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) regulations are reshaping global waste management. While approximately 40 countries have implemented EPR, significantly increasing waste management budgets, a stark disparity exists. About 150 countries, many low-income, lack EPR and rely heavily on an estimated 20 million informal waste pickers. KOLEKT has […]
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As of today, some 40 nations have placed the responsibility for the collection of packaging waste or the payment of the waste collection costs with the companies that sell the products and packaging. This regulation, called Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR), is probably the most effective step taken in decades to generate more funds for waste […]
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The global spotlight on national waste legislation is intensifying, and Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) stands at the forefront. EPR offers a compelling solution for financing sustainable waste management, embodying the ‘polluter pays’ principle. Simply put, EPR mandates that producers, importers, and brands take responsibility for the lifecycle of their products, either by directly managing waste […]
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This Saturday, 1 March, we mark World Waste Pickers Day—a moment to celebrate the unsung heroes of global recycling systems. Waste pickers, who collect and process 60% of the world’s recycled materials, are environmental stewards and economic innovators, yet their contributions remain undervalued. At BVRio, we champion their role as catalysts for a just transition, […]
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In an article published last week by the Brazilian newspaper Folha de S. Paulo, reporter Joana Cunha interviewed the Secretary for the Urban Environment, Adalberto Maluf, about the Ministry of the Environment’s initiative to strengthen the regulation of an Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) model in Brazil. The initiative is seen as a crucial step towards […]
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