Discussion On The Extended Producer Responsibility Regime

"Extended Producer Responsibility"(EPR)regime is a series of legal regulations that guide, promote and force producers to assume responsibility in order to solve the waste products problems. EPR regime includes two meanings: 1) Extended responsibility of producer– it means that producer should be responsible for pollution prevention of waste products problems, information disclosure of products environment and disposal and recycling of waste products; 2) Regulation Mechanism of EPR regime– it includes administrative regulation mechanism and economic modulation mechanism that guide, promote and force producers to assume extended responsibility.EPR regime is a new regime which is recently established by some western developed countries to eliminate environmental impact of waste products such as electrical products, waste motor vehicles, and waste packaging and so on. It is created to handle the increasingly serious problems of waste products. Waste products problems are the waste of resources and environmental pollution problems that are caused or are likely to be caused by the discarded products in latter consumption phase. It relates to the consumer's behavior of discarding waste products arbitrarily, the producer's production behavior whose products are produced using a lot of resources and with the potential possibility of pollution, and the absence of relevant regulations as well as the improper disposal methods of waste products. However, the most important reason is the contradiction between the unlimited growth of product demand for resources as well as the waste products'potential possibility of pollution and the limited natural resources (that is, the scarcity of natural resources and limited self-purification ability of environment). It has become the key of this contradiction that human's demands are unlimited but nature's supply is limited. Simply using"Terminal Control"can not fundamentally solve waste products problems. Hence, based on the resources demands of products and the potential possibility of pollution, EPR regime requires that producers (including manufacturers and importers) should assume extended producer responsibility of waste products problems. In order to find a"second source"of natural resources, it is required that producers should recover and recycle waste products. In order to establish a"second approach"for pollution control of waste products, it is required that producers should prevent it from source and recycle waste products. The balance between the demands for resources in production and the supply of resources provided by nature should be maintained. The waste products emissions in production and everyday life mustn't exceed the capacity limit of environment. Actually it is a series of legal regulations that help to mitigate the pressure of resources scarcity by creating"artificial ecosystem"and achieving"artificial ecological balance".EPR regime originates from the term"Extended Producer Responsibility"which was first used and defined by Lindhqvist who was working for Lund University in 1988. The core idea of EPR is that producers should assume extended responsibility of waste products problems. As for the content and extension of extended responsibility, it is defined in different ways by Lindhqvist, OECD, the EU and the United States. Nevertheless, the basic meaning of EPR is the same. That is,"producers should assume extended responsibility". In other words, the difference which occurs in defining the content and extension of extended responsibility would not affect us to define the concept of EPR.In 1991, the first EPR regime applied to packaging– German Packaging Ordinance was established in Germany. Then, some developed industrialized countries, such as Sweden, Canada, Australia and Belgium, followed the example of Germany by establishing EPR regime which was applied to specific waste products. Currently, EPR regime has become very popular in western developed countries. And the extension of waste products, which EPR regime is applied to, is being broadened.EPR regime is the specific regime that make producer to bear responsibility for protection and rational use of environment and resources. The extended responsibility is a part of the social responsibilities assumed by enterprises. In fact, it is the result of the evolution of the Corporate Social Responsibility Act that some countries established EPR regime by changing extended responsibility of producer into legal obligation. The manufacturing of producer produces not only wastewater, waste emissions, waste residue and other substances but also products with potential possibility of pollution. The wastewater, waste emissions, waste residue and other substances will affect environment immediately to engender negative externality of production. However, the products with potential possibility of pollution will not affect environment to engender negative externality of production until the products are discarded after storage, transportation and consumption. Therefore, waste products problems are actually negative external environmental issues which are regarding both consumption and production. The establishment and implementation of EPR regime can be a powerful means to internalize negative externality of production. EPR regime not only follows the ecological laws to achieve the direct target for closed-loop feedback cycle of"resources - products - renewable resources"but also embody the principle of"minimization, reuse and resource utilization". It is not only reunification of producers'environmental rights and obligations but also national protection for environmental rights of the public that producers should bear extended responsibility when producers have the rights of production and environment. Hence, corporate social responsibility theory, externality theory, recycle economy theory and theory of environmental right, which show the justness and reasonableness of extended responsibility for waste products, are the theoretical basis for EPR regime.Extended responsibility is the extended obligations that producers should bear to deal with waste products problems. It includes the responsibilities of pollution prevention such as responsibility of product's environmental design, responsibility of clean materials choice, responsibility of clean technology use, and responsibility of clean production, which aim at reducing the product's carrying capacity of resources and the product's potential possibility of pollution. It also includes the responsibilities of product's environmental information disclosure such as warning responsibility of product's environmental danger and tagging responsibility of recycling, disposal and reusing of waste products, which aim at making preparation and providing the necessary facilities to bear the responsibility of recycling, disposal and reusing of waste products in future. The assumption of extended responsibility is the implementation of the Recycling Economy principle of"minimization, reuse and resource utilization"as well as the denial of End-treatment Method for environmental resource problems. Currently, the legal processes which are used by many countries to promote and force producers to bear extended responsibilities comprise economic modulation means (including deposit - refund mechanism, collection and disposal charges on waste products, financial loans concession, tax relief, special subsidies and so on) and administrative regulation means. These two means come into being the economic modulation means and administrative regulation means of extended producer responsibility regime. The economic modulation means and administrative regulation means of extended producer responsibility regime converge and cooperate with each other and thereby compose the"mixed regulation mechanism"for extended producer responsibility regime.To the increasingly serious problem of waste products, China has also gradually established the extended producer responsibility regime comprising the pollution preventing responsibility for waste products from source, the responsibility of product's environmental information disclosure and the responsibility of recycling, disposal and reusing of waste products. By establishing the rudiment of extended producer responsibility regime, the waste products problems in China has been responded. However, for China's present extended producer responsibility regime, there are many problems that need urgent solution such as scattered content, unspecific definition of producer, un-comprehensive prescription of extended producer responsibility, lack of"mixed regulation mechanism"for extended producer responsibility regime, weak maneuverability, and absent rigid constraints. Therefore, China's present extended producer responsibility regime should be improved by forming the general framework of extended producer responsibility regime, concretely defining the producer and its extended responsibility, and establishing"mixed regulation mechanism"for extended producer responsibility regime.