Perspectives on Product Stewardship

The massive increase in consumer product waste, its toxicity, and the complexity of materials have created an unbearable financial and management burden for municipal officials-it has become untenable. We have outgrown the era of municipalities being solely responsible for recycling. A paradigm shift is needed.
The concepts of Extended Producer Responsibility and Product Stewardship play a significant role in bringing our consumption of natural resources and emission of greenhouse gases back into balance with the earth's ability to absorb these impacts.
Perspectives on Product Stewardship provides an overview on managing products throughout their life cycles in order to conserve resources, decrease environmental impact, and share the burden of responsibility. It gives the reader a broad understanding of the origins and evolution of the rapidly expanding field of product stewardship and extended producer responsibility, while providing exemplary and precautionary case studies-on paint, batteries, and packaging.
Informative and timely, this reference will be useful to anyone engaged in, or embarking on, efforts to reduce impacts from consumer products: producers, retailers, waste management professionals, recyclers, governments, environmental advocates, students, and the public.

Contents

Preface
PART I
1. Building Capacity for Product Stewardship in the United States

2. Don't Let Good Things Go To Waste

3. ProducerResponsibility in the United States: Definitions and Core Principles
4. Origins of Producer Responsibility

5. The Global Evolution of Producer Responsibility Policies
6. Creating Effective Laws through a Collaborative Stakeholder Process
7. Implementing EPR Laws and Measuring Progress
PART II: CASE STUDIES
8. Paint Stewardship: A US Case Study

9. Battery Stewardship: A US Case Study
10. Packaging EPR in the United States

Conclusion
Acknowledgments
Index
About the Author