B) Rules applicable to waste management
The responsibilities of the economic agents involved - Towards a generalisation of Extended Producer Liability
Member States may decide that the producer of the product from which the waste came at the end of its life is to be subjected to the principle of “Extended Producer Responsibility” (EPR). For this purpose, the notion of producer, which for the purposes of the principle is that the producer of the product from which the waste came, is to be understood broadly as whoever “professionally develops, manufactures, processes, treats, sells or imports products” (Article 8(1)).
Where such a principle is activated, a producer would then be bound to “an acceptance of return products and of the waste that remains after those products have been used, as well as the subsequent management of the waste and financial responsibility for such activities” (Article 8(1)). However, producers generally elect to team-up and create waste management systems (such as Duales System Deutschland in Germany or Eco-Emballages in France), to which they transfer such obligations and make financial contributions.
In other words, EPR relies on economic instruments which allow for the internalisation of external costs related to the product’s end-of-life. Since EPR seeks to impact on the product’s life-cycle, Member States may in addition take “appropriate measures to encourage the design of products in order to reduce their environmental impact and the generation of waste in the course of the production and subsequent use of products” (Article 8(2)).
In doing so, they may encourage, inter alia, “products that are suitable for multiple uses, that are technically durable and that are, after having become waste, suitable for proper and safe recovery and environmentally compatible disposal” (Article 8(2)).