Extended producer responsibility for plastic waste management: learning from international best practices and designing framework for India

Student name: Ms Sulisha Sharma
Guide: Dr Kamna Sachdeva
Year of completion: 2020
Host Organisation: The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI), New Delhi
Supervisor (Host Organisation): Ms Mehar Kaur

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Abstract:

Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) based policy approaches have been a core of most recent policies and legislation dealing with different waste streams including plastic packaging with an objective to help improve recycling and reduce landfilling of products and materials and move towards a resource efficient, circular economy. Packaging industry across the world including India leads both the sectoral usage of plastic and generation of plastic waste. This study involves a review of EPR systems for packaging waste from developing and developed countries and assesss their effectiveness and draw learnings to design an EPR framework for enhancing the effectiveness of waste PET bottles in India. The methodology for the study included identifying parameters for the assessment of EPR systems, conducting comparative assessment of existing systems based on these parameters and then integrating these parameters into a possible shared responsibility framework/model for India. The developed framework has been also discussed with key stakeholders and their inputs have been taken.

Keywords: Extended Producer Responsibility, Packaging producers, Producer Responsibility Organization, End of life goods, Plastics.