Planning the Funeral at the Birth: Extended Producer Responsibility in the European Union and the United States

The European experience with extended producer responsibility (ERP), the reasons for apparent resistance to ERP in the United States, and the implications of a move toward product-oriented environmental law are explored. The European Union is implementing product-oriented environmental regulation based on the principle of ERP, which assigns responsibility to manufacturers to take back their products after consumers discard them. ERP can dramatically alter production practices by internalizing externalities from products and providing incentives for environmentally friendly design. Practical problems of implementation raise questions about the effectiveness of ERP as a policy too. Given the substantial cost and technical hurdles to establishing the legal underpinnings of ERP programs, it is recommended that the United States consider alternative policy instruments to address environmental externalities from products.