New to EPR? Here are Four Challenges and Solutions to Help you get Started
So you’ve registered as a producer for EPR. Now what? In South Africa, you can comply with the extended producer responsibility regulations in one of two ways: starting your own EPR scheme or joining an existing one. The whole point of joining such a scheme is to reduce the amount of waste your business produces and start contributing to the green economy.
EPR can be very good for the environment, but it can also be a headache for producers who are just getting started. South Africa, like many developing countries, faces socio-economic challenges that can make it more difficult to implement EPR. Some of the main problems producers encounter lie in financing, infrastructure, public awareness, and stakeholder collaboration. We go over each of these challenges (with potential solutions) in more detail below.
Challenge: Financing your EPR scheme
An EPR scheme is made up of many moving parts. Each component, such as waste collection, recycling, project management, marketing, reporting, etc, comes with its own costs. To fund all of this, producers must pay EPR fees. Fees are based on the total cost of recovering and recycling the waste, which includes collection, transport, treatment, admin costs, and more.
Therefore, the more products you sell (by weight) the more you will pay for EPR. This can be a challenge for small and medium-sized producers in particular, who may find it difficult to absorb those fees on top of other running costs.
Solution: Get into the business of recycled materials
When it comes to EPR, increasing your sales will also increase your costs. This can easily become an endless cycle of chasing the funding you need. That’s why the solution to making EPR more affordable lies in non-EPR-eligible markets.
Expanding your business into green or eco-friendly areas of the economy is a clever way to boost your income without increasing your EPR responsibilities. It helps you fund your EPR scheme, diversify your offering, and build a green economy other producers can benefit from – a win-win-win. Creating hype around recycled materials will drive up their value and reinforce the entire EPR system.
Challenge: Dealing with underdeveloped waste collection systems
Collecting waste at the post-consumer stage is a key component of EPR. However, this becomes challenging when wheelie bins and regular collections are not part of your customers’ daily lives. According to Stats SA, only six out of 10 South African households have access to weekly rubbish collection. The rest often resort to burning or illegally dumping their trash.
With simple waste collection already such a challenge, recycling can feel impossible. There is no national recycling scheme in place and municipalities don’t typically offer kerbside pick-up. To get an EPR scheme going, producers are forced to be creative and find their own ways of collecting recyclables from the public. This becomes even more challenging in rural and underserved areas.
Solution: Work directly with communities
Unless you have infinite resources, collecting recyclables en masse will require collaboration with other organisations. In areas where working with the municipality is out of the question, producers can turn to civil society and the public itself. Many underserved communities in South Africa endure high unemployment rates. This presents a unique opportunity for you to run an EPR scheme that also creates jobs.
Implementing EPR in places with no formal waste collection services could mean relying on informal systems. Working with waste pickers and SMMEs, for example, can help you reach your collection and recycling targets despite the infrastructure challenges in the area.
Challenge: Getting the public to participate
Even the most sensible EPR schemes mean nothing without public participation. The number of consumers often outweighs the number of producers in EPR-eligible sectors. Therefore, getting the end-users of your products involved in your sustainability plan is crucial to its success.
However, not everyone cares about recycling. After all, most ordinary South Africans have a lot more to worry about. A 2022 survey found that 90% of people living in the country’s metros do not separate recyclables from their general rubbish. This psychological resistance to recycling can make it extremely difficult to drum up support for your EPR initiatives.
Solution: Get to know your customers better
Like anything in life, EPR works better when people are happy and willing to be involved. So how do we get people invested in a cause? Make it feel personal and relatable. Mothers recycle because they want to leave a clean planet for their children. Students do it to raise funds for school projects. Builders do it to get affordable supplies from recycled materials. The point is, a worthy cause looks different to everyone.
The first step in getting people to participate in your take-back scheme or recycling drive is to find out what they care about most. It also helps to know what they need. This approach can help you design an incentivised EPR scheme that rewards people for their participation.
Challenge: Sharing responsibilities with other industry players
The South African EPR regulations state that producers must include the entire value chain in their EPR schemes. That means working with suppliers and other stakeholders in your network to reduce waste from a product’s manufacture to its disposal.
Our EPR regulations have a wide scope that encompasses producers of many kinds. Sometimes, this may impede collaboration, especially if parts of your value chain are located offshore. Understanding the legislation and dividing EPR responsibilities accordingly can be challenging for many producers. Free riders – people who find ways of avoiding EPR fees – may also undermine the system when there is poor communication and trust.
Solution: Work with a producer responsibility organisation
Producer responsibility organisations (PROs) can help you navigate the nuances of EPR and communicate with recyclers on your behalf. The eWASA PRO takes this a step further by incorporating representatives from each section of the value chain. This structure is designed to help producers collaborate up and downstream a lot faster and more efficiently.
Becoming a member of the eWASA PRO simplifies EPR compliance by giving you access to a network of certified recyclers and collectors, plus civil society and community support. Learn more about our membership options here or get in touch for more information.
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