Every Monday evening, I leave recycling boxes on the kerb outside my house. Much of this time is spent grumbling about the fact that I have left this task until the last minute, which is almost invariably the coldest, darkest, dampest part of the week, and cursing my procrastination.
Relatively little time is spent considering the complex systems of collection, sorting and disposal that follow. Yet for policymakers, businesses and environmentalists, that process is central to the debate about how responsibility for the full life cycle of a product should be borne.
Europe has taken the lead in extended producer responsibility regulation, which is essentially the idea that manufacturers should shoulder responsibility for their products from creation to disposal.
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