Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) and the Impact of Online Sales

Extended producer responsibility or product stewardship is a policy approach that aims to increase waste recovery and recycling. Extended producer responsibility (EPR) systems aim to make producers responsible for the environmental impacts of their products throughout the product chain, from design to the end-of-life phase. This report focuses on free-riding of producers or retailers, which the fast expansion of online sales in recent years has been exacerbating. Online sales are creating new free-riding opportunities as consumers are able to buy more easily from sellers in other countries. These sellers often have no physical, legal entity in the country where the consumer resides, and are not registered with national or local EPR schemes.