Theme 1 — Foundations¶
Extended producer responsibility began as a single sentence in a 1990 report to the Swedish environment ministry: the producer should bear responsibility for a product's end-of-life impacts, because the producer is the party able to design those impacts out. Almost every argument in this library is a dispute about what that sentence entails.
This theme establishes the vocabulary the rest of the library uses. It distinguishes EPR from the instruments it is routinely confused with, separates its two competing objectives, tests whether it satisfies the polluter-pays principle it is usually justified by, and sets out the individual-versus-collective distinction that determines whether the design signal survives at all.
The articles¶
1.1
What is EPR, and where did it come from?¶
Traces the instrument from Thomas Lindhqvist's 1990 formulation through Germany's 1991 ordinance to the present, and separates the original design-incentive rationale from the municipal-cost-transfer rationale that now dominates legislative debate.
1.2
What problems is EPR meant to solve — and has it delivered?¶
EPR carries two goals that pull in different directions: financing collection, and changing what gets made. Financing is demonstrably achieved; design change is not, and the two are routinely conflated when programmes are judged.
1.3
Is EPR a 'polluter pays' policy?¶
Tests the standard justification against the standard definition. EPR charges the producer rather than the disposer, which is a defensible extension of the principle but not a straightforward application of it.
1.4
Is an EPR fee a tax?¶
A question with real legal consequences rather than a semantic one — it determines constitutional treatment, appeal rights and who may set the rate. The answer differs by jurisdiction and is now being litigated in the United States.
1.5
EPR, product stewardship, deposit-return and packaging taxes¶
Sets out the control test that distinguishes EPR from product stewardship, and positions EPR against deposit-return systems and packaging taxes as alternative instruments aimed at overlapping problems.
1.6
Individual vs collective producer responsibility¶
The distinction that determines whether the fee reaches the design decision. Collective schemes average the signal away; individual responsibility preserves it in theory and has proved close to unworkable in practice.
What this theme establishes¶
- EPR's founding rationale was design change, not cost transfer — and the two goals are now routinely conflated.
- The control test, not the funding arrangement, is what separates EPR from product stewardship.
- Whether a fee is a tax is a live legal question, not a definitional one.
Part of The Packaging EPR Library. Method and source rules are set out under Sources and method.