| Extended producer responsibility (EPR) was raised only 20 years ago. Its earliest legislation occured in the field of package recycling and disposal, then expanded to the recycling and disposal of battery, electrical and electronic products, household electrical appliances, and other fields of solid waste, so EPR has come to be understood as responsibility of producers to recover, recycle and dispose their products which have been used and abandoned. The concept and legislative practices of EPR were introduced to China in late 1990s. There is a high degree of unanimity in academy, legislation and national policy concerning how to understand it. As a kind of responsibility, EPR is mainly understood as the liability or obligations of producers to recycle and dispose their products which have been used and abandoned. As a kind of system, EPR is understood as an administrative system of solid waste. This paper explores the development of environmental legislation in western developed countries, analyzes the background of EPR, and suggests that the current understanding of EPR in China is a kind of limited interpretation, and is not accurate. In fact, the basic connotation of EPR refers to the liability and obligations of producers for their products’ impact on environment throughout their whole life. Accordingly, in order to protect environment and conserve resources, besides the traditional liability in administrative law, civil and commercial law (including environmental tort liability), producers’ responsibility should extend to the selection of raw materials, product design, manufacturing, waste product recycling and final disposal. This paper also suggests that, the institutional origin of EPR is to control contamination in the whole process of production, and the theory of circular economy is its ideological and theoretical source.The difference between limited interpretation and expansive explanation of EPR is not only a question of the scope of responsibility, but also involves how to understand EPR accurately in environmental law. Only if we understand EPR from an expansive view, can we understand the idea of environmental law and provide an innovative institutional arrangement in the context of dual crises of resources and environment. |
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