Sustainability of Recycling Systems with Inclusion

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