EPR changed the landscape but can we do better?

Extended Producer Responsibility has changed BC’s approach to recycling at almost every point in the system. But is it the best approach? Or can we do better? Don't miss your chance to be a part of the conversation and register today for #RCBC2015.

In the opening session on May 6, keynote speaker Marc Adams, Managing Director, of the Inter-Regional Packaging Commission of Belgium will talk about about the role of competition. He’ll discuss a system made more effective through competition at the operational level as monopoly organizations are only acceptable when there is full transparency of their activities.

With its EPR framework, Belgium has a functional competition approach operationally, while the advantages provided by monopolies at an organisational level are maintained. The key is a system structured for balance, independence and neutrality that incents efficiencies in a market place made functional through calls for tenders and free access, not only to information, but to the market itself.  Marc Adams will identify the components that make the recycling market and the system work well for Belgium. 

---

Usman Valiante is Senior Policy Analyst with Corporate Policy Group LLP, with more than 20 years experience in public policy issues involving a complex mix of economics, environmental science, law, business strategy and politics. In what is sure to raise the spectre of contention, Usman will follow Marc Adams with the perspective that full producer responsibility is more than just financial responsibility. He argues that producer self-determinacy, and the discretion to design reverse supply chains for recovering, reusing and recycling printed-paper and packaging.

In the context of EPR and highlighting innovation as its essence, Usman will describe the decisions that producers make (or are able to make) under shared responsibility and compares them to decisions they make (or have a much better chance of making) under a principled application of EPR.

In what is not a critique of producer packaging choices, or existing municipal recycling efficiency, Usman analyses the relationship between producer packaging choices and the current approach to recycling in Ontario versus that in British Columbia.  His conclusion makes the case that revisiting the fundamentals of EPR may provide for better environmental and financial outcomes.

---