Extended
Producer Responsibility is a concept where manufacturers and importers of
products should bear a significant degree of responsibility for the
environmental impacts of their products throughout the product life-cycle,
including upstream impacts inherent in the selection of materials for the
products, impacts from manufacturers’ production process itself, and downstream
impacts from the use and disposal of the products. Producers accept their
responsibility when designing their products to minimise life-cycle
environmental impacts, and when accepting legal, physical or socio-economic
responsibility for environmental impacts that cannot be eliminated by
design.