1. TALLER 6: Sostenibilidad de los sistemas de reciclaje con inclusión
Sostenibilidad de Esquemas de Reciclaje: la experiencia internacional

2. Can We Get to a Circular Economy?
If recycling is the preferred public policy over waste disposal worldwide why is it more expensive to collect and recycle used products and packaging than the market value of the recovered commodities?

3. Waste or Resource Management?
Waste management materials handling practices are more efficient
Waste generators seldom charged the true economic, social and environmental costs
Raw material extraction is subsidized and environmental and social costs externalized
Poor economies of scale in recycling collection and processing
Lack of competition in recycling systems

4. Closing the Financial Gaps
Waste disposal surcharges to discourage waste generation and to raise funds to support recycling
Charging “advance disposal fees”
Voluntary and mandatory deposit – return systems
Charging generators of waste for collection and treatment/providing recycling services at no charge
Mandatory recycling laws
Bans on the disposal of recyclable materials
Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR)

5. What are the Goals of EPR?
To give preference to recycling of used products over disposal
To internalize to the producer (and indirectly the consumer) the cost to manage products and packaging at the end of their useful life.
To provide an economic incentive to the producer – the key actor in the production /consumption chain with the greatest ability to re-design their products - to reduce environmental impacts by reducing resource consumption and waste disposal

6. EPR Goals (2)
To promote behaviour changes among producers and consumers to achieve broader public policy goals such as:
To favour reuse over single use products
To eliminate toxic materials
To ensure a level playing field for innovative companies making these changes
To promote competition

7. Is EPR Working?
Designed properly EPR drives large increases in recycling
Requires producers to pay fees to sustain these financially
There has been very little success in changing producers behaviour in the design of packaging:
Continued substitution of plastics for glass and metals
Multi-material pouches and laminates are the fastest growing components of packaging
Making used packaging waste lighter, smaller, less valuable and more difficult to recycle
Governments (and some leading companies) are introducing new policy incentives to drive more effort into reduction and reuse

8. A Key Question for LATAM
Can public policies to protect the rights and needs of informal recyclers be legitimately and effectively integrated within EPR policies?

9. The IRR/IADB Study
There are at least 400 different EPR programs operating in approximately 100 jurisdictions
National and sub-national
This study is focused on packaging
16 candidate jurisdictions assessed
9 selected for more intensive study
Focus on well established international programs and leading LATAM countries
To provide:
Comparative analysis of the results achieved
Case studies that could provide a helpful starting point for other LATAM markets considering similar approaches

10. LATAM
Brazil - unique design to incentivise the inclusion of informal recyclers
Ecuador - a government imposed fee on beverage containers
not consistent with EPR principles
Uruguay - based on a shared producer responsibility model which shares some aspects with European EPR programs

11. Mature European Austria, Belgium, France, Spain
Each with over 20 years experience
Operate under very different economic, institutional and cultural conditions than LATAM

12. ROW
South Africa - a mix of informal and formal recycling system with voluntary EPR programs over which the government has implemented new legislation
Turkey - has been implementing “European” style EPR approach over a dominant informal recycling system

13. Some Early Observations
All countries have some form of informal recycling
European EPR programs do not have explicit policies or regulations to protect or advance the interests of informal recyclers
Driven by technology improvements & cost reduction
There are tensions between policies to advance formal municipal recycling programs and the existing informal sectors in Turkey & South Africa
LATAM is the leader in addressing the needs of informal recyclers as national recycling and EPR policies evolve