10th Asia Pacific Roundtable for Sustainable Consumption and Production

Yogyakarta, Indonesia, 9 -11 November 2011

Overcoming Challenges to Policy Design and Implementation

Extended Producer Responsibility Policy in Developing Asia

Date & time: 11 November 2011, 13.30 15.30 Venue: Workshop 11, Mataram 1, Sheraton Mustika Hotel, Yogyakarta

Session Objectives
In the last two decades policies based on extended producer responsibility (EPR) have been implemented for a wide range of products, especially in industrialised economies. Now, an increasing number of Asian economies similarly find themselves facing increasing amounts of difficult-to-treat waste and associated health, social and environmental risks, as well as rising demand for resources. Many have introduced, or are considering, EPR-based legislation. Considering the design and implementation challenges in developing Asian countries, how can EPR be effectively employed by the governments? This session introduces the current status, obstacles, opportunities, and possible solutions for successful introduction and implementation of EPR in developing Asia.

Session Schedule
Session Moderator: Mohammad Helmy, Indonesia Solid Waste Association (InSWA) Chair: Dr. Magnus Bengtsson, SCP Group, Institute for Global Environmental Strategies
Speaker Topic

1.

Ms. Masnellyarti Hilman,

Deputy Minister for Natural Resources Conservation Enhancement and Environmental Degradation Control, Ministry of Environment of Indonesia

EPR Plans in Indonesia and current challenges

2. 3.

Mr. Michikazu Kojima,

IDE-JETARO

Dr. Chun-hsu Lin,

Research Fellow, Deputy Director of the Research Division Chun-Hua Institution for Economic Research

Challenges and Opportunities to EPR in Developing Asia Unique Features of Taiwans EPR system and Second Implementation Experiences

4. 5.

Dr. Yasuhiko Hotta and Mr. Lewis Akenji, Adapting EPR to Developing Countries: A Phase-in SCP Group, Institute for Global Environmental Approach
Strategies

30 Min. Panel Discussions - 15 minutes for each presentation - 5 minutes for Q&A

Short Bios of Presenters

Masnellyarti Hilman was born on 26 June 1953 in Padang Panjang, West Sumatera. She is an environmental specialist, government official and lectures. She holds a Master of Science (M.Sc) from Colorado School of Mines, USA. Her undergraduate was from Padjajaran University in Bandung Indonesia. She also has been trained in several countries in related to environmental issues. Masnellyarti Hilman is working for the Ministry of Environment (MoE) Republic of Indonesia from 1981 to present and she has been assigned to be a several high rank levels on MoE Republic of Indonesia. And now, her position is a Deputy Minister for Hazardous Substances, Hazardous Wastes and Solid Wastes Management. And during her assignment as a Deputy Minister, she also has been assigned to be several National Focal Points related to Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs), Rotterdam Convention on the Prior Informed Consent Procedures for Certain Hazardous Chemicals and Pesticides in International Trade, Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and their Disposal and she also become a Member of Board of Trustees for Institute for Global Environmental Strategies (IGES) Japan. During her assignment as Deputy Minister, she has been attended many environment international meetings as an Indonesian Head of Delegation or Member of Delegation.

Michikazu Kojima is the Director of Environment and Natural Resource Studies Group at Institute of Developing Economies, JETRO, in Japan. He has studied recycling in Asian Countries, including EPR, international trade of recyclable waste and industrial policy for promoting recycling. He contributed some papers related to EPR such as "Difficulties in applying extended producer responsibility policies in developing countries: Case studies in e-waste recycling in China and Thailand" and "A Comparative Study of E-waste Recycling Systems in Japan, South Korea and Taiwan from EPR Perspective". He is the coordinator of Working Group for 3R Policies for Southeast and East Asia at Economic Research Institute for ASEAN and East Asia (ERIA). He is also a member of "Asia Resource Circulation Policy Research" organized by IGES. Chun-hsu Lin, Ph.D. in Environmental and Natural Resource Sciences, is currently serving as the Deputy Director of the International Division at Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research in Taipei. Although his training in school was in soil and water conservation, during the past decade, his research activities were more focused on the policy and planning of the recycling systems in Taiwan, especially for waste electrical and electronic equipment as well as end-of-life vehicles. Since 2011, he has also got involved with the Green Trade Project Office under the Ministry of Economic Affairs of Taiwan, which is to promote the green products and services from Taiwan in the global market. His current tasks include organizing a series of training occasions and education events for Taiwanese business. On the other side, he is also actively engaged in international marketing for Taiwanese green products and services. Yasuhiko Hotta, Ph.D., is a Deputy Director/ Senior Policy Analyst of Sustainable Consumption and Production Group at Institute for Global Environmental Strategies (IGES), Japan. His research focuses on the effects of globalization on reform in environmental policy as well as development of policy concepts for sustainable resource circulation and resource efficiency in Asia; such as Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR). He has been involved in both policy initiatives and research projects in relation to sustainable resource circulation in Asia such as G8's 3R Initiative and Working Group for 3R Policies for Southeast and East Asia at Economic Research Institute for ASEAN and East Asia (ERIA). Currently, he is coordinating a 3-years international collaborative research project called "Asia Resource Circulation Policy Research" which aims to contribute to policy discussions in policy forum for promoting the 3R policy; Regional 3R Forum in Asia.

Abstracts of the Presentations

EPR Plans in Indonesia and Current Challenge
Deputy Minister for Hazardous Substance, Hazardous Waste, and Solid Waste Management Ministry of the Environment Republic of Indonesia

Mrs Masnellyarti Hilman

Indonesian Law No. 18 Year 2008 regarding Solid Waste Management shifts revolutionary the paradigm of municipal solid waste management from end of pipe approach to reduce at source and resource recovery. For implementing those paradigms Indonesia should transform the policy and regulation by promoting and practising 3Rs (reduce, reuse, and recycle). We should put the way we manage our solid waste at more upstream and divert our waste as much as possible from waste stream. At this point, we define waste reduction and waste avoidance on top list priority of Indonesias waste policy. Relate to waste minimisation implementation, role and responsibility of community and business sector are very important. At the business sector point of view, Article 14 and 15 of Solid Waste Management Law stipulated that producers should share responsibility with government by producing and distributing environmentally product and packaging as well as managing post-consumer product and packaging. Article 14 mandates producer to put label on their product and packaging that indicates design for environment (DfE). Meanwhile, Article 15 mandates producer to manage their post-consumer product and packaging. Government set those articles of Law as legal basis of extended producer responsibility (EPR) policy and implementation. Thus, in Indonesian case EPR is a mandatory. To implement EPR policy in Indonesia, we are now formulating government regulation as implementing regulation of the Law. In some articles of the draft of that government regulation we set up the basic principles of EPR implementation. Furthermore, we elaborate the principle of EPR into the guideline of EPR mechanism and practice. We shall formalise the guideline by ministerial regulation. However, introducing EPR policy and regulation in Indonesia needs great efforts since we face some challenges including: (1) opposing from industrial sector; (2) clarifying appropriate EPR scheme; (3) defining priority product and packaging; (4) how to set up phase of implementation; (5) how to integrate incentive and disincentive scheme into EPR mechanism; (6) and (7) how to involve local government and informal sector into EPR. Jakarta, October 2011

Challenges and Opportunities to EPR in Developing Asia

Director of Environment and Natural Resource Studies Group Institute of Developing Economies, JETRO, Japan

Mr. Michikazu Kojima

Japan, South Korea and Taiwan have applied Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) to e-waste, automobile and packaging and container waste since 1990s. China started recycling system based on EPR in January 2011. Other Asian developing countries such as Thailand, Malaysia, Vietnam and Indonesia are preparing to develop EPR recycling system This presentation overviews background of such movements and types of requirement to producers in EPR recycling systems in Asian countries. Challenges and opportunities to apply EPR in developing countries are also discussed. In order to develop EPR recycling system, government should understand the problems in current recycling system and make clear the objective of new recycling system. Depending on the objective, appropriate design of recycling system, including obligation to producer, should be considered. Challenges to apply EPR in developing countries are (1) large market share of non-branded, faked and smuggled products for specific items, (2) relationship with informal collectors, (3) a few credited recyclers on specific wastes, (4) competition with informal recyclers and (5) weak producers association which may not cover small and medium industries. In addition to design appropriate recycling system, government should take some roles to tackle the above challenges, in cooperation with producers and other stakeholders. The introduction of new recycling system can be opportunities to reduce environmental cost of disposal and recycling of target item, to increase the employment, and to secure the resources. It is common that producers are against new requirement from government. Government should explain the necessities of introducing the EPR, based on the understanding of problems of recycling system and benefit from new recycling system.

Taiwans EPR system

Deputy Director of the International Division Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research, Taipei

Dr. Chun-hsu Lin

The unique feature of Taiwans recycling system is more on the format of its operation which has in fact evolved through three stages: before 1988, underwent as purely private commercial activities without any recycling regulations; between 1988 and 1998, was organized by private recycling organizations; since 1998, has been controlled by a central government recycling program, the Waste Recycling Fund (WRF) that is supervised by the Environmental Protection Administration (Taiwan EPA). WRF was created to integrate all of previous private recycling programs. At the same time, the Recycling Fund Management Board (RFMB), authorized by the Waste Disposal Act in this country, was established to collect the collection, disposal and treatment fees of the mandatory regulated materials from responsible parties. The Management Board is also in charge of distributing subsidies to registered recyclers and monitoring the environmental performance of those recyclers. From another perspective, the current Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) system in Taiwan means that producers take the financial responsibility and the RFMB takes the physical responsibility. Currently, there are fourteen categories of mandatory regulated materials for recycling, also called Due-Recycled Wastes, designated by the RFMB. The current structure of the EPR system is built on six main bodies: RFMB, consumers, responsible industries, collection and treatment agents, Collection, Disposal, And Treatment Fee Reviewing Committee (CDTFRC), and auditing agents. The CDTFRC is an ad hoc unit that sets reasonable fees for the responsible industries. The auditing agents are judicial third parties contracted by the RFMB to scrutinize the submitting of the fees and subsidiary applications. Under the six bodies of operation along with the unit-pricing policy for household trash enacted in 2002, the performance in collection and recycling of the EPR system has been remarkable. Although the RFMB of Taiwan EPA has achieved recycling performance to a certain level during the past decade, there are several problems encountered, such as free riders, high cost of auditing and certification, the contradictory roles between recyclers and producers and how to phase out particular items from the Due-Recycled List. A more fundamental issue is the function and operating structure of the RFMB can be improved. In order to further promote recycling performance in Taiwan, the future recycling operation schemes are not necessary to remain the same as current RFMB system. Based on the principle of the Extended Producer Responsibility, we suggest a conceptual structure of recycling platform that should be operated by responsible industries, or producers, not by the government. Industries should operate a recycling platform on their own for the future Due-Recycled wastes.

Adapting EPR to Developing Countries: A Phase-in Approach

Deputy Director, SCP Group

Dr. Yasuhiko Hotta, Mr. Lewis Akenji,

SCP Senior Policy Coordinator, SCP Group Institute for Global Environmental Strategies

Despite the increasing popularity of EPR-based legislation for electronic waste (e-waste) management in developing Asia, there are several challenges to moving from paper to practice. Part of the issue is that many developing countries are trying to apply the EPR model that was developed for and by industrialised countries. In the phase-in approach proposed by IGES recently, the application of EPR should be adjusted to the level of national economic development, capacity for environmental policy enforcement, market structure of products and recyclables, consumer awareness, and relationships among key stakeholders. EPR implementation should progressively go from a basic focus on improved waste management to finally achieving design for environment. Each country should establish a national e-waste expert review (NEWER) panel, active at both planning and implementation stages, to examine the country specific situation, recommend suitable policy tools, advise stakeholders, monitor implementation and assess progress towards performance targets. A platform for regional collaboration is needed for capacity development, but also to address transboundary flows of waste. The platform should place more effective controls on the export of e-waste from industrialised to low-capacity, developing countries, thereby helping to ensure that harmful recycling and treatment is avoided.

Publications

IGES POLICY BRIEF

EPR Policies for Electronics in Developing Asia: A Phase-in Approach
September 2011, Author: Akenji, Lewis; Bengtsson, Magnus; Hotta, Yasuhiko and Hayashi, Shiko Download: http://enviroscope.iges.or.jp/modules/envirolib/view.php?docid=3347

IGES Sustainable Consumption and Production Group

Tel: +81-46-855-3840 Fax: +81-46-855-3809 E-mail: scp-info@iges.or.jp 2108-11 Kamiyamaguchi, Hayama, Kanagawa, 240- 0115 Japan TEL: +81-46-855-3700FAX: +81-46-855-3709 E-mail: iges@iges.or.jpURL: http://www.iges.or.jp