Action taken report by the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change in the matter of Original Application No. 29/2020 (Avani Mishra Vs Union of India on extended producers responsibility under Plastic Waste Management Rules, 2016.

The Ministry had received around 160 comments from various stakeholders and organizations on the guidelines document for Uniform Framework for Extended Producers Responsibility (EPR) under Plastic Waste Management Rules (PWM Rules), 2016. The comments were received from Central Pollution Control Board, Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs, Organizations working in the area of waste management, industry, industry associations, civil society organizations and citizens. These comments are currently being compiled and reviewed by the Ministry and subsequently the EPR framework would be finalized.

Some of the features included in the document for Uniform Framework for Extended Producers Responsibility are the following:

1. The EPR shall be Brand neutral and Geography neutral

2. Penalties shall be imposed on the Producer/Importer/Brand Owner for the portion of waste not collected against the targeted collection. This fees shall be used for creating infrastructure for plastic waste management 

3. The uniform framework for EPR consists of three models for the producers/importers/brand owners for selection of mechanism under which they want to implement the EPR. The Guidelines provide for the following three models:

Model 1 – Fee based model

Model 2 – PRO based model

Model 3 - Plastic Credit Model

4. While adopting any one of the model or both the models at the same time, the producers/importers and brand owners need to register themselves at the national registry.