EPR Canada launches Report Card

Solid Waste & Recycling Nagazine Apr 2, 2012
A relatively new organization — EPR Canada — has launched a new measure to study the extended producer responsibility (EPR) programs burgeoning in every province across Canada. EPR programs are an effort to have waste producers pay for the end-of-life management of the consumer products and packaging they put into the marketplace.
The measure announced by EPR Canada is the launch of a Report Card to evaluate the policies which support these programs. This first-of-its-kind environmental Report Card will be made public and be posted on the EPR Canada website (eprcanada.ca) in June this year.
“This week, we are mailing detailed questionnaires to the environment ministers of each provincial government asking them to provide specific information on their policies and programs to support extended producer responsibility” said Duncan Bury, one of the leads for this new initiative. “Government legislation and actions play a key role in stimulating private sector and consumer activity in EPR program development, performance and monitoring.”
EPR Canada has assembled a panel of the leading experts in the field in Canada to review each government’s response and to score their performance. The results of these scores will be released at an open public event this June and will be posted on the EPR Canada website.
“We of course can’t compel every government to participate,” said consultant Geoff Love, another project lead for EPR Canada, “but we are confident that provincial authorities will find it to be in their interest to conduct an annual, independent check-up of these important environmental programs.
“EPR is one environmental area where Canada continues to be a world leader.”
The project is internally funded by the founding members of EPR Canada. It is expected that a Report Card will be prepared each year for the next five years.
EPR Canada was formed in the fall of 2011 as a not-for-profit association of like-minded individuals who have been involved with producer responsibility programs across Canada since the inception of EPR in the country a few years ago. The seven founding members are profiled on the website. The goal of the association is to help ensure the continued growth and improvement of EPR policies programs and practices across Canada.
The Canadian Council of Ministers of the Environment (CCME) defines EPR as a policy approach in which a producer’s responsibility, physical and/or financial, for a product is extended to the post-consumer stage of a product’s lifecycle. EPR shifts responsibility upstream in the product lifecycle to the producer and away from municipalities. As a policy approach it provides incentives to producers to incorporate environmental considerations in the design of their products. EPR also shifts the historical public sector tax-supported responsibility for some waste to the individual brand owner, manufacturer or first importer.
For further information please contact Duncan Bury or Geoff Love or write to info@eprcanada.ca or visit www.eprcanada.ca