scholarly journals Applying the extended producer responsibility towards plastic waste in Asian developing countries for reducing marine plastic debris

2021 ◽  
pp. 0734242X2110134
Author(s):  
Hendro Putra Johannes ◽  
Michikazu Kojima ◽  
Fusanori Iwasaki ◽  
Ellen Putri Edita
Keyword(s):  
Developing Countries ◽  
Rural Areas ◽  
Electronic Waste ◽  
Transportation Cost ◽  
Free Riding ◽  
Plastic Waste ◽  
Extended Producer Responsibility ◽  
Producer Responsibility ◽  
Rural And Remote Areas ◽  
High Transportation Cost

The extended producer responsibility (EPR) has been adopted in many countries throughout the world to give producers responsibility to manage their products until the post-consumer stage. On many occasions in developing countries, the system is mostly implemented for electronic waste. However, with the rising concern on the marine plastic issue, developing countries, including those in Asia, have started to apply EPR for package and container waste. In practice, developing countries show significant differences in their EPR implementation compared with developed ones due to contrasting conditions of several factors, including social, economic and technology. This article aims to explore the challenges of developing countries to apply EPR as well as determine possible measures to overcome the challenges. Results show that applying EPR system for plastic waste in developing countries faces many challenges, such as the existence of a market-based collection system of recyclables, high transportation cost, lack of waste collection services in rural areas, a limited number of facilities to manage certain types of plastic waste, insufficient pollution control and free riding and orphan products. The challenges, furthermore, can be minimised by differentiating the responsibility of producers, focusing on rural and remote areas, involving informal sectors, creating joint facilities in recycling parks, expanding waste management collection services, increasing the use of EPR and minimising free riding.

Plastic Waste Pollution and Its Management in India

2019 ◽  
pp. 62-73 ◽  
Author(s):  
Athar Hussain ◽  
Ayushman Bhattacharya ◽  
Arfat Ahmed
Keyword(s):  
Waste Management ◽  
Health Effects ◽  
Environmental And Health Effects ◽  
Plastic Waste ◽  
Current Status ◽  
Consumer Health ◽  
Extended Producer Responsibility ◽  
Landfill Sites ◽  
Producer Responsibility ◽  
Plastic Products

Plastic, one of the most preferred materials in today's industrial world, is posing a serious threat to the environment and consumer health in many direct and indirect ways. The global plastic production increased over years due to the vast applications of plastics in many sectors. More than 50% of the plastic waste generated in the country is recycled and used in the manufacture of various plastic products. The remaining half is disposed of at landfill sites or simply burned in incinerators. The burning of plastics, especially PVC, releases this dioxin and also furan into the atmosphere. In this chapter, the authors examine the environmental and health effects and harm caused by the burning of plastics in detail. It focuses on the current status of plastic waste management in India and industries working under the extended producer responsibility. Therefore, an attempt has been made to review the current practices prevalent in India to deal with this plastic waste and problems associated with it.

Extended responsibility or continued dis/articulation? Critical perspectives on electronic waste policies from the Israeli-Palestinian case

2019 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 368-389 ◽  
Author(s):  
John-Michael Davis ◽  
Yaakov Garb
Keyword(s):  
Value Chain ◽  
Driving Forces ◽  
Electronic Waste ◽  
Commodity Chains ◽  
Extended Producer Responsibility ◽  
Global Commodity Chains ◽  
Producer Responsibility ◽  
Global North ◽  
North And South ◽  
External Driving

Extended producer responsibility policies and interventions propose a template for electronic waste management with considerable and growing discursive and policy traction worldwide. Originating in the global North, they increasingly implicate countries and sites in the global South, in particular, people working in informal electronic waste hubs that process Northern electronic waste. This paper examines the implications of extended producer responsibility in one such place through the lenses of critical waste studies and the dis/articulations approach to global commodity chains, which can usefully be extended to analyze the afterlife of commodities. From Israel and the Palestinian Authority's perspectives, recently activated extended producer responsibility legislation is a common-sense way to rationalize the management of electronic waste. But from the cluster of Palestinian villages that has processed the bulk of Israel's electronic waste for more than a decade, extended producer responsibility constitutes the most recent in a series of external driving forces that have disarticulated and rearticulated their landscapes and livelihoods from external economies over the last half century. The restricted scope of reformist extended producer responsibility policies notion of “responsibility” combined with the asymmetrical terms of dis/articulation between North and South is likely to result in outcomes that not only downgrade the informal sector's position in the value chain, but also undermine their ability to upgrade the electronic waste sector in a way that could avoid further pollution. We consider the options at this junction using the heuristic of suggesting what a more temporally, geographically, and sectorally conceived “extension of responsibility” might mean for extended producer responsibility.

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