In a move that is meant to reduce pollution and pressure on overstretched landfills, the government wants businesses to take more responsibility of how their products are disposed of.
According to the department of environment, forestry & fisheries, the regulations will give effect to the Waste Act and apply to the electrical and electronic equipment sector, lighting sector and paper, packaging and some single-use product sectors.
“They outline a new approach to waste management in SA and will contribute significantly to the diversion of waste from landfill,” the department said in a statement. “This will increase the recycling rate and expand the circular economy, thus achieving some of the aims of the national waste management strategy published in 2020.”
The move could put more pressure on consumers as producers are likely to pass on extended producer responsibility costs to them. Consumers are likely to have to pay more for goods that are deemed to have higher end-of-life costs.
Environment, forestry & fisheries minister Barbara Creecy has previously said the government needs to respond urgently to improve the management of waste and reduce pollution and pressure on the country’s 820 landfill sites, which are close to capacity.
On Sunday, the department announced the publishing for public comment of the draft amendments to the regulations and notices regarding extended producer responsibility in the waste sector.
Implementation of the regulations, initially published in November 2020, was postponed to May 2021 to address concerns raised by affected producers. Some called for a phased-in approach over a number of years.
Under the regulations producers will be required to take responsibility for their products throughout the product life cycle, from raw material extraction through product design and use, and ultimately recovery and recycling or re-use.
This will increase the recycling, reduction, re-use and recovery rate, thus achieving one of the aims of the National Waste Management Strategy. The department said the regulations also present an opportunity for the government to work closely with industries that produce varying amounts of waste to enhance the country’s capacity to recycle.
As a means through which the manufacturers and importers of products are required to bear a significant degree of responsibility for the impact their products have on the environment, extended producer responsibility ensures that those products are either recycled or upcycled, and that waste products diverted to landfills are kept at a minimum. This means that the producers of the products listed must develop and submit their extended producer responsibility schemes or establish a producer responsibility organisation.
Producers, including brand owners, would be required to set up procedures and processes and invest resources to implement the extended producer responsibility measures with regards to the management of waste generated by their industries. This includes light bulbs, batteries, solar panels, single-use products, vinyl, metal and glass packaging, vehicle lights, laser lighting, toys, TV and computer screens, and a variety of domestic appliances.
In an article published in 2020, Alecia Pienaar and Margo-Ann Werner from law firm Cliffe Dekker Hofmeyr noted that the extended producer responsibility is a waste management policy approach founded on product stewardship and the “polluter-pays principle” captured in section 2 of the National Environmental Management Act of 1998. The intention of the approach is to extend a producer’s financial or physical responsibility across the life cycle of its product to the post-consumer stage (including waste disposal).
Extended producer responsibility “has become increasingly central to the local waste management discourse. This follows as SA’s waste generation continues to increase, with significant volumes still being diverted to already limited landfill space. Failure to comply with various provisions under the draft regulations will be an offence, which may, upon conviction, lead to an ‘appropriate fine’, imprisonment for a period of 15 years, or both,” Pienaar and Werner stated.
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