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Q&A: What happens when producers are responsible for recycling their products and packaging?
Who should pay when a product becomes waste—the company that made it or the public? That question sits at the center of extended producer responsibility (EPR), a policy strategy that shifts recycling costs onto manufacturers to reduce waste and promote more eco-friendly design. Used in more than 100 countries for packaging, electronics, mattresses and batteries, EPR is gaining traction in the U.S. Seven states have passed legislation requiring producers to cover the costs of recycling their packaging.
As the policy has spread, so has the need to understand its impact. Reid Lifset, a research scholar at the Center for Industrial Ecology at the Yale School of the Environment who has tracked EPR since the early 1990s, has compiled and published an extensive, open, online bibliography of EPR research and analysis. He spoke about EPR's history and potential.
Q. What was the main goal of EPR, and what mechanisms were developed to carry it out?
The policy was intended to provide incentives to companies to reduce waste and pursue more sustainable design by holding producers accountable for recycling their products.
In addition to assigning legal responsibility for managing products or packaging when they become waste, EPR typically includes quantitative recycling targets, obligations to fund—in varying ways and amounts—recycling and/or waste management, and provisions for monitoring and enforcement.
EPR has led to the creation of a novel type of organization: the Producer Responsibility Organization (PRO), which provides services such as collection and sorting of recyclables on behalf of producers as a group. The producers pay the PROs for these services.
There are many variants of EPR across product types and countries. The variations are both a source of complexity and a potential menu of policy designs and outcomes.
Q. What challenges has EPR faced?
Not surprisingly, it has been opposed by industry, including consumer goods and waste management companies, because of the costs they may bear under EPR. As it is designed now, if a company increases the recyclability of its product, it may still pay the same fees to a PRO for compliance services because the fees are typically based on the product's market share.
It's facing court challenges. I am serving as an expert witness for the state of Oregon in a lawsuit brought by the National Association of Wholesale Distributors over the state's EPR packaging law, which took effect in July 2025. Also, a group of attorneys general from 17 states are suing the state of California, which is in the midst of implementing its EPR packaging law.
Q. How effective has EPR been in reducing waste and promoting more eco-friendly design?
Its effectiveness is hard to assess because of data gaps and because its effect on waste management—good and bad—is hard to distinguish from other factors such as changes in the economy, shifts in the composition of waste and variations in its implementation.
To strengthen the financial incentives, a new lever is being introduced: eco-modulation, in which producers not only pay a portion of the overall cost of compliance with EPR but can reap some benefits or incur additional costs. For example, a producer can pay lower fees if a product has more recycled content or face penalties for problematic design.
Q. What prompted you to create the bibliography, and what impact do you hope it will have?
EPR can be complicated to implement, and there are a lot of moving parts to get right. I think the bibliography will be useful to policymakers, businesses, advocacy organizations and other researchers by providing free access to an organized and curated compilation of references.
It contains references to journal articles, books, book chapters, reports, theses, conference papers and preprints, including both peer-reviewed academic articles and nonacademic publications from governments, think tanks, industry associations, consulting firms and advocacy organizations.
For policymakers, business leaders, advocates and other professionals, I hope the database will enable them to find and use research that will broaden and deepen their understanding of EPR, when and how it works, and how it might be used most effectively.
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Citation: Q&A: What happens when producers are responsible for recycling their products and packaging? (2026, July 22) retrieved 22 July 2026 from https://phys.org/news/2026-07-qa-responsible-recycling-products-packaging.html
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