INTRODUCTION:

One material that has captured the world, from clothing to transportation to food (packaging) and what not? Something that stays at our fingertips all through the day, from keyboard to mouse, a pen and a bottle. It’s nothing else than ‘PLASTIC’. Plastic has penetrated to such a profound extent in our lives, because of its qualities of being durable, affordable, weather resistant, light weight which reduces the transportation cost and its quality of being molded to any shape and size.

The invention of plastic is a threat to earth, as it constitutes major share in land pollution¹. The problem is not in using plastic, the problem arises post consumption. When the product is thrown away, the discarded plastic is either recycled or it goes in a landfill or it ultimately goes in the water bodies.

Only about 9% of the plastic produced till date has been recycled, 12% has been burned and the remaining 79% has ended up in landfills or the environment². It has a severe impact on marine life, plastic is killing more than 1.1 million seabirds and animals every year (Mwamba, 2018).

The versatility with which plastic has entered in all spheres of life and has become a necessity for easy and affordable survival, the problem is to manage the plastic waste in a way that its impact on the environment is less. Waste management is said to eliminate adverse impacts on the environment and human health, while supporting economic development³. One of the policy tools that governments across the world has experimented with is ‘Extended Producer Responsibility’ (Lindhqvist, 2000). It is a policy tool through which the manufacturer is required to take the responsibility of the waste generated from it throughout the life cycle.

EPR FOR WASTE MANAGEMENT:

Current economy works on the concept of take (easily available resources), make (using fossil fuels), use and dispose. This leads to un-managed heaps of waste and since the resources are finite, they are tough to get and hence increased volatility of the same. This raises the question ‘would linear economy work long term’? If not, then the alternative to this is circular economy make, use, return; lease the service (Schulze, 2018). To understand EPR, the concept of linear and circular economy needs to be analyzed. Linear economy is a system where once the product is given to the customer; there is no responsibility of the producer for the waste that is generated from it. The process flow is as follows:

So, in the case of linear economy the responsibility of the manufacturer is only till the point of distribution. Thus, saying the entire load here comes to the government authority who is collecting waste⁴. In the case of circular economy, the product / components / materials are recovered and restored by reusing, repairing and remanufacturing (Ellen MacArthur Foundation, 2013). That is, as the responsibility of the manufacturer is extended throughout the life cycle of the product, in which case the linear economy turns into circular economy. EPR targets the entire product chain⁵. There are numerous benefits of circular economy cited as waste reduction, greater resource productivity, addressing issues of resource scarcity and reduction of the impact on environment (WRAP, 2014). EPR as a policy tool can help accelerate the circular economy and it forces on thinking about the life cycle of the product. It is estimated that in case of European Union’s GDP, there could be an increment by 12.5 by 2050, due to the shift from linear to circular economy (Schulze, 2018). The impact of Circular Economy on the EPR includes the coverage of full cost of product after end of life, which means the end consumer would pay for the cost of collection, sorting, treatment and disposal process. The scheme acts as an agent for closed loop sectors, that is the products are recovered and re-introduced in the economy, through a collect back system, thus minimizing the material loss. Also, the producers get access to their own material for re-processing (cleaning, refurbishment or recycle) (Zero Waste Europe, 2017). The various benefits of an EPR policy are that it puts off the burden of the municipalities and the taxpayers at the end of life of the product. Also, it reduces the amount of waste that reaches the final disposal. It helps in improving the recycling rates as well. The environmental policy agenda behind EPR is the enhancement of resource productivity and circular economy⁶. The EPR schemes also drives eco-design of products which means the products should be durable, reusable and recyclable, this would mean that the product would be littered less (Zero Waste Europe, 2017).

EPR is used for managing various types of waste and of the total EPR programs worldwide 17% are on packaging, 35% on electronics, 18% on tyres, 12% vehicles/batteries and 18% others. Also, an analysis on the different types of EPR instruments used in these EPR policy were such that 70% projects were take-back, 11% deposit/refund and 17% were of Advanced Disposal Fees or Recycling category (Borkey and Lifset, 2016). EPR is being practiced worldwide with different tools, one of which is ‘Packaging Waste Recovery Note’ (PRN). This is a system where the producers must buy PRN from the re-processors, which acts as a proof that the packaging of that producers are recycled. The different types of models for achieving the collect back are destined drop off, in-store product take-back, and home-delivery. In European Union (EU) 45% of the total product and packaging are covered under the EPR policy⁷. Scotland on the other hand is working on the National Deposit Return Scheme under the EPR. Deposit Refund System (DRS) is a system through which the customer gets incentives when they return the packaging of the product (in this case beer cans, soft drink bottles) to the collection point, this is done through a refundable deposit which was taken from the customer when h/she bought the product. The stakeholders in the DRS are the producers, retailers, logistics company, central coordinating system, consumer and re-processors. This process includes sub-processes such as ‘clearing’ where the deposit is tracked and recorded when it is returned to the customer. Also, this includes financial transactions in which handling fees is given to the retailer’s fee compensating the facilities of take back. Various design parameters which impact DRS are material and products, structure and level of deposit(s), labelling and fraud prevention, take back infrastructure, ownership of material revenue, governance, rural areas, flexibility and timing (Hogg Peter Jones Tim Elliott Maxine Von Eye Adrian Gibbs Simon Hann et al., 2015).

EPR should be designed such that it formalizes the informal sector. In order to improve the EPR system the roles and responsibilities should be defined for all the stakeholders; a reporting system should be developed, and targets should be set for meaning the waste management and there should be set principles according to which the PRO can be established. There are various challenge faced by producers in getting back the waste because it still has some economic value (F. and C. C. O. G. C. Government of India, Ministry of Environment, 2016). While calculating the feasibility of EPR project, cost of end-of-life is important and it dependents on the parameters of cost of reverse logistics, cost of dis-assembling the product (must include future labour cost), net value of materials to be recycled/processed, likelihood and revenue from reused or remanufactured components (Spicer and Johnson, 2004).

EPR FOR PLASTIC WASTE MANAGEMENT: INDIAN SCENARIO:

Plastic is very critical to be managed in solid waste and if we can manage plastic the problem of waste would be reduced. EPR is practiced in various parts of India for e-waste but the concept of EPR in Plastic Waste Management is new in the country. According to the Confederation of Indian Industry report 8% of total solid waste generated in the country is plastic waste. According to Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) the collection efficiency in 2014 was 80.28%, of which only 28.4% waste is treated. This means the rest of the 71.6% of the waste goes to the landfill. Gujarat alone produces 50% of the plastic waste in the country, as said by the GPCB Chairman Arvind Agrawal, which leads to the need of having special responsibility of recycling or disposing plastic waste (Industry, 2018). With the increased awareness about solid waste management as a result of Swachh Bharat Mission in India, the magnanimity of the problem of plastic is realised, with the effect of which the government of India came with Solid Waste Management (SWM) Rule 2016 and Plastic Waste Management Rules (PWM) 2016 which quotes about Extended Producer Responsibility.

SWM Rules 2016, states that local government should work towards reducing the amount of waste generated, by reusing, recycling and thus reducing the amount of waste going to the landfills. Also, it says that the informal sector of waste pickers should be formalized by involving these people in the above stated activities of recycling and reusing (collection, sorting, etc.). Section 17, Clause (2), states the duties of the manufacturers (or brand owners of disposable products), which includes that these organizations will financially assist the local authorities in the waste management system. Most important of all, the manufacturers who sell materials in non-biodegradable packaging must develop a collect back mechanism for the waste generated (F. and C. C. Government of India, Ministry of Environment, 2016b). According to PWM Rule 2016, and its amendment 2018, Section 9, defines the responsibility of the producers towards the waste generated by their product and states that these producers must develop a system for waste collection as part of the Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR). This could be done individually with the help of their own distribution channel or collectively with the help of the local body. Also, the ‘collect-back’ plan needs to be submitted to the State Pollution Control Board, else the consent for renewal or registering the organization won’t be given⁸ (F. and C. C. Government of India, Ministry of Environment, 2016a).

In the year 2018 CPCB introduced registration of PROs (Producer Responsibility Organization), who on producer’s behalf would manage the waste (collection and reuse/disposal) and give them a credit note in the form of a certificate stating their waste has been collected and reused/disposed off (Plastic et al., 2018). These PROs could work for one producer or multiple producers. PRO is given recognition by Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB). An organization must have worked for 5 years in the field of Solid Waste Management to get the CPCB recognition of a PRO. In total 21 PROs were recognized by CPCB (CPCB, 2018). PROs were majorly aggregators to the waste pickers and the recyclers/scrap dealers. The waste was collected by the PROs from the waste pickers or factories in the form of bulk waste and it was then transferred further to the scrap dealers but in some cases the PROs were scrap dealers themselves. So, the producers who had hired them for EPR got certificates from these PRO’s to show the compliance. The PROs calculated the total waste collected by them and according to the weight they give the producers a certificate stating that they have collected and treated or disposed the ‘x’ amount of waste in the name of Producer ‘y’. Thus, complying by the liability of the producer. Two copies of this certificate were made, one sent to the producer and the other sent to CPCB. The producer later shows its compliance to CPCB through its copy and the liability fulfilment is cross checked by CPCB. This was the general procedure for EPR compliance. Recently CPCB has deregistered all the PROs.

RECENT PRO WORKING MODEL:

PROs work with the waste pickers by providing them better livelihood. A team of waste pickers is formed by them who are educated and trained for collection of waste, its segregation and whom to sell the waste to. Each waste picker is then deputed to a total of 200 households, in order to give them a permanent source of income. The ragpicker earns from the sales proceed of the waste collected and segregated to the next level of hierarchy that is scrap dealer or the contractor. So, the ragpicker earns from the household for the collection of waste and from the scrap dealer for selling the segregated waste. So, these ragpickers are now formalized in the system as daily waste collectors. The hierarchy of waste transfer is as follows:

Figure 1 Working model-1 of PRO

LOOPHOLES IN THE MODEL:

After analyzing the working of all the five recognized PROs, the loopholes in the system of existing EPR were found, which are as follows:

The collected plastics by the ragpickers are those which have more market value, are easy to pick and are of higher weight (such as PET bottles). Therefore, the most litter creating products (food wrappers, etc.) are still in the environment thus polluting the same.

Figure 2 Example of loophole in existing system.

The liability of waste sent by the producer in the market is excluded of the factory waste. This factory waste is now recycled and the net weight from the liability is subtracted. The factory waste is uncontaminated segregated waste.

This leads to a proposition that the role of a PRO must be further strengthened and defined clearly. As per the above scenario it was very vague and ambiguous leading to ineffective policy outcomes.

Irrespective of which company’s waste is recycled and which category of plastic is recycled the producer/brand owner is given the credits based on the weight of plastic recycled. This could be understood by the above example. The PRO had been given the collection responsibility of Brand C which has valuable and non-valuable waste. But as can be seen in the above figure the PRO collect the waste of other two brands and also of different types of plastic waste as per value and gives the credit to Brand C wherein the litter of Brand C is still in the environment. This has enabled the PROs to earn additional money from the brand owners/producers for the same work they used to do earlier.

PWM Rule 2016, section- 9 says “Primary responsibility for collection of used multi-layered plastic sachet or pouches or packaging is of producers, importers and brand owners who introduce the products in the market. They need to establish a system for collection back of the plastic waste generated due to their products.⁹” They should collect back their products and not somebody else’s products which are readily and easily available in the market. The missing link in the circular economy is thus the collect back mechanism of the waste products.

CURRENT MODEL:

CPCB has deregistered all the PRO’s and discontinued with the scheme of recognition of PRO with CPCB since May 2019 citing that sufficient time has lapsed since the guidelines for managing plastic waste have been in public domain and adequate awareness of fundamental principles of EPR including collection, processing / disposal of waste has been created amongst the various stakeholders. As per the CPCB notification though the recognition of the PRO (with CPCB) is discontinued but it clearly states that the manufacturers can still engage these agencies (earlier PROs) at their discretion.

As per the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change Notification the Plastic Waste (Management and Handling) Rules 2016 as amended on 27th March 2018, G.S.R 320(E) cites the responsibility of the producer in Rule 9. “It states that 1) The producers, within a period of six months from the date of publication of these rules, shall work out modalities for waste collection system based on Extended Producers Responsibility and involving State Urban Development Departments, either individually or collectively, through their own distribution channel or through the local body concerned; 2) Primary responsibility for collection of used multi-layered plastic sachet or pouches or packaging is of Producers, Importers and Brand Owners (PIBO) who introduce the products in the market. They need to establish a system for collecting back the plastic waste generated due to their products. This plan of collection to be submitted to the State Pollution Control Boards while applying for Consent to Establish or Operate or Renewal. The Brand Owners whose consent has been renewed before the notification of these rules shall submit such plan within one year from the date of notification of these rules and implement with two years thereafter; 3) Manufacture and use of multi-layered plastic which is non - recyclable or non - energy recoverable or with no alternate use of plastic if any should be phased out in two years’ time; 4) The producer, within a period of three months from the date of final publication of these rules in the Official Gazette shall apply to the Pollution Control Board or the Pollution Control Committee, as the case may be, of the States or the Union Territories administration concerned, for grant of registration; 5) No producer shall on and after the expiry of a period of six months from the date of final publication of these rules in the Official Gazette manufacture or use any plastic or multi-layered packaging for packaging of commodities without registration from the concerned State Pollution Control Board or the Pollution Control Committees; and 6) Every producer shall maintain a record of details of the person engaged in supply of plastic used as raw material to manufacture carry bags or plastic sheet or like or cover made of plastic sheet or multi-layered packaging.¹⁰”

Plastic Waste Management Rules have made it compulsory for the Producers/Importers/Brand Owners (PIBOS) under the Extended Producers Responsibility to manage the plastic waste generated by them and for the same these PIBOS were asked to submit their Action Plan. Earlier CPCB had provided PROs (recognized) for making these action plan but now CPCB’s notice suggests that these PROs were only for the purpose of hand holding and spreading awareness, since enough time have passed CPCB decided to take back the recognition that were given to these PROs but this doesn’t mean that these PROs do not exist in the market or the PIBOS can’t take their help in managing the plastic waste. Prior to commencement of production the PIBOS are supposed to take registration from CPCB/SPCBs/PCCs for which submitting an Action Plan for plastic waste management is a compulsion. Also, those PIBOs who had already taken their registration, were supposed to submit their action plan else their registration would not be renewed.

Action plan consists of a process which the PIBOS will follow for the environmentally sound management of plastic waste generated by the PIBOS until the end of life of the plastic packaging and not the end of life of their product. CPCB has suggested three alternatives as part of the action plan which can be adopted by the PIBOS, these are Plastic Waste Management through Own Distribution Channels, Plastic Waste Management through Urban Local Bodies (ULBs) and PWM through Agency.

In all the three cases the action plan must have the four components, one, who will collect the waste; second, the quantity of waste which should be equivalent to the quantity of waste generated; third, waste recycling that is what process would the plastic go through; and fourth, the action plan coverage, which will depend on where is the product distributed and accordingly the collection back of the waste from the same place¹¹.

As of April 2019, an indicative list of 52 unregistered brand owners/producers was released by CPCB which included food and beverage companies, cement industries, fertilizer industries, pharmaceutical companies, health and beauty care companies, garment industries, etc¹². Another document of approved list of brand-owners and producers was released on 14th October 2019, which included 74 brand-owners and 4 producers, who are registered and submitted their action plans¹³.

CHALLENGES IN REALISING THE OBJECTIVE OF EPR:

The EPR policy for plastic waste envisages the management of plastic waste as the primary responsibility of the producer. This is an appropriate fixation of responsibility but in operational terms it is an unrealizable responsibility and will make the outcomes unattainable. Interviews with PIBO’s revealed that it imposes much of the operational responsibility of collecting back the waste generated on their part. The PIBO’s are not equipped enough to handle this responsibility in terms of network, infrastructure and technology. The PIBO’s are efficient in the production and distribution mechanisms of their concerned products but not in terms of handling the plastic waste generated due to packaging. Bigger brands which have pan India presence finds it difficult to operate with collection agencies at each city where the distribution channel exists. A reverse logistics set up is practically difficult to set up by each PIBO. It’s a tall order to pursue which makes the ultimate outcome in the theory of change unattainable. The technical and economic feasibility for a reverse logistic set up at each decentralized sales channel is disputed. It would involve collection, transportation and monitoring of the concerned brand’s waste or even if PRO is engaged the above cited problems would definitely demonstrate themselves. It would mean running multiple waste collection systems in the cities or gram panchayats. Thus, waning to achieve the purpose of reverse logistics which is reduced handling cost while increasing the value from the goods, or proper disposal¹⁴.

In effect this highly decentralized model of plastic waste collection on the part of the PIBO without effective monitoring is a loosely tied up proposition which despite the regulations in place will make plastic waste litter in the cities and the respective ULB’s would end up managing the waste which according to the PWM rules is the primary responsibility of PIBO. The cities would still be found littered and the outcome of the policy would be in doldrums. A sound policy measure should be organizationally implementable along with technical soundness. Here the policy falls short of organizational implement-ability.

POLICY IMPLEMENTATION:

A simpler and scalable model of EPR implementation for plastic waste needs to be thought about in the light of the nuances discussed above. A robust measure which can ensure compliances without much effort would be the success of any policy in place. The involvement of wide range of stakeholders and the policy implementation is the key to the success of Waste Management¹⁵. The model for better compliance can be a fee-based model. The PIBO’s can be asked to pay the fees as per the volume of plastic waste they introduce into the market in each state. Such a corpus of fund could see better utilisation by state government if ring fenced for only managing solid waste in the ULBs of the state. The state government can apportion the funds amongst the ULBs in the state as per the requirement of respective ULBs. This would help strengthen the capacities and infrastructure of the local bodies to better deal with waste and also involve the recyclers in the process thus mainstreaming the waste pickers in the whole system. This would act as an opportunity for local bodies to strengthen their systems and processes in waste management when they would be provided with the requisite support in terms of financial resources to better manage manpower, outsource agencies and infrastructure. This would inculcate professionalism in service delivery of waste management which would further empower them to get into the user charges as per the volume of waste collected at the citizen’s end. A similar model has been suggested in the Plastic Waste Management report by Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs, GoI, which states that the producers/importers/brand owners will contribute an amount based on the weight of plastic introduced into the market¹⁶.

CONCLUSION:

Plastic has entered our lives in various shapes and forms, and it comes with the problem of being non-biodegradable. To manage the epidemic plastic has become, government has been trying its best to come up with different policies to reduce the use of this material and manage it. One of these policies is Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR), which was introduced under the Plastic Waste Management Rules 2016 in India.

The present practices under the name of EPR are a way to blindfold the government because the plastic waste is still in the environment and the PIBOs are shedding their responsibility by submitting paper work of waste collected on the basis of weight and not considering the type/category of waste being collected. Tracking the flow of product and further the flow of plastic waste generated post consumption of the product is a cumbersome task and for managing plastic waste the ULB’s are best placed to deal with it. ‘Polluter pays Principle’, needs to be followed literally, depending on the type and category of plastic waste generate by the PIBOS, waste fund (EPR charge) should be collected by the PIBOS and handed over to local ULBs⁸.

On a very realistic tone no matter how much rigid collection model is devised on paper, be it on monetary basis or task basis, there would always be leakages and achieving 100% collect back is an unattainable target. Therefore, the ultimate aim of working towards sustainability and environment friendliness is taking steps towards Design for Environment. The EPR corpus fund can also be utilized for promoting research in identifying sustainable packaging products. Researches needs to be done for creating such materials and policies need to encourage the establishment of these units by the manufacturers.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT:

The authors are grateful to the authorities, PROs and other organizations who were contacted to understand the processes.

CONFLICT OF INTEREST:

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

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Received on 20.03.2021 Modified on 27.06.2021

Asian Journal of Management. 2021;12(4):394-400.

DOI: 10.52711/2321-5763.2021.00059