The Waste Framework Directive defines an extended producer responsibility scheme as a set of measures taken by Member States to ensure that producers of products bear financial responsibility or financial and organisational responsibility for the management of the waste stage of a product’s life cycle (Article 3(21)). Article 8 allows Member States to impose such responsibility on any person who professionally develops, manufactures, processes, treats, sells or imports products, including the acceptance of returned products and waste and the financing of its management, and Article 8a lays down general minimum requirements for the schemes: clearly defined roles, waste management targets, reporting and financial contributions that cover the costs of separate collection, transport and treatment and are, where possible, modulated by durability, reparability, re-usability and recyclability.
Sector legislation makes the principle mandatory. Under the Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation producers have extended producer responsibility for the packaging they first make available in a Member State (Article 45); under the Batteries Regulation for batteries (Article 56); and under the WEEE Directive producers finance the collection, treatment, recovery and disposal of waste electrical and electronic equipment and must register in each Member State where they sell (Articles 12 and 16). In each case “producer” is defined per Member State and includes the manufacturer, the importer, the brand owner and distance sellers from other countries, so a company selling into Denmark is a producer in Denmark whether or not it is established there.
In practice this means registering in the national producer register, reporting quantities placed on the market, paying fees, usually through a producer responsibility organisation, and, for sellers established abroad, appointing an authorised representative for extended producer responsibility in each Member State concerned, as the Batteries and Packaging Regulations require.