DENR urges firms to register their EPR
LARGE businesses must register their respective Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) programs for plastic packaging within six months after the effectiveness of Republic Act (RA) 11898, which mandates them to take responsibility for the entire life cycle of their plastic waste.
This is the call of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) to big businesses as it warned that they will be penalized once failed to register their EPR within the given period.
The DENR said that the private sector is expected to submit their registration as an obliged enterprise, as a collective, or as a producer responsibility organization, in compliance with the DENR Administrative Order (AO) No. 2023-02 signed by DENR Secretary Antonia Loyzaga. The DENR administrative order serves as the EPR’s Implementing Rules and Regulations (IRR) issued on Jan. 24, 2023.
RA 11898, which amended RA 9003 and took effect on Aug. 13, 2022, places responsibility for the entire life cycle of plastic waste on its producers through the development and implementation of its EPR programs that focus on waste reduction, recovery, and diversion.
While other policy instruments target a single point in the value chain, EPR seeks to integrate signals related to the environmental characteristics of the products and production processes throughout the product chain.
The EPR tasks obliged enterprises to develop and implement a program to effectively collect plastic packaging in the country.
The implementation of the EPR Act is seen to guide the Philippines to gradually develop and transition to a circular economy as it helps address the growth of the plastic industry and the mismanagement of plastic waste.
