Producer Responsibility has become a core principle of European Union's environmental policy over the last decade. At its core is the aim of making business responsible for the products that they produce throughout their lifecycle, from raw materials to post-consumer waste.

To date, measures have focused on a handful of priority waste streams. Presently the only producer responsibility legislation active in the UK is the Producer Responsibility Obligations (Packaging Waste) Regulations 1997 and Packaging (Essential Requirements) Regulations 1998. These Regulations are an extension of the 'Producer Responsibility' framework provided by the Environment Act 1995.

Producer Responsibility Obligations (Packaging Waste) Regulations 1997

With the aim of reducing damage to the environment caused by packaging waste and to shift the burden of managing that waste onto the producers, the regulations place an obligation on organisations in the packaging chain, within set thresholds, to recover and recycle a proportion of waste created by packaging.

The Packaging Directive is the first of many producer responsibility Directives that will be implemented over the next few years by the EU. These are targeted at a number of 'priority waste streams' that have been identified and it is predicted that, over time, a universal producer responsibility will be in place.

For a simple overview of relevant legislation to waste and recycling, follow the link here to the NetRegs website.