Extended producer responsibility across the waste rules

Prelims and MainsCurrent affairs on this: E-waste, battery and hazardous waste

Extended producer responsibility makes the producer, importer or brand owner responsible for a product after the consumer has finished with it, so that the cost of collecting and recycling is built into the product rather than left to the municipality. India has written it into six sets of rules under the Environment (Protection) Act, 1986, one product family at a time: plastic packaging, electronic waste, batteries, waste tyres, used oil and, most recently, end of life vehicles. The machinery is the same in each: the producer registers on a Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) portal, is given a yearly target for collection or recycling, meets it by buying certificates from registered recyclers, and pays environmental compensation if it falls short. What differs is the target, and in the newer rules a second obligation, that a set share of new products must contain recycled material, which is meant to create demand for what is collected.

EPR in India, rule by rule

Product	Rules	Year	What the producer must do	Recycled content mandate
Plastic packaging	Plastic Waste Management Rules, 2016 and 2022 guidelines	2016, EPR targets 2022	collect and recycle set shares of packaging placed on the market; certificates from recyclers	yes, from 2025
Electronic waste	E Waste (Management) Rules, 2022	in force April 2023	recycling targets as a share of products sold, met by certificates	no
Batteries	Battery Waste Management Rules, 2022	2022	collection and recycling targets by battery type	yes, from 2027
Waste tyres	Hazardous and Other Wastes Rules amendment	2022	recycling targets for tyres sold or imported	no
Used oil	Hazardous and Other Wastes Rules amendment	2023	collection and re refining targets	no
End of life vehicles	End of Life Vehicles (Management) Rules, 2025	2025	scrappage targets through registered vehicle scrapping facilities	no

One mechanism, six product families; the newer rules add a recycled content duty to make collection worth doing.Source: MoEFCC rules as listed; CPCB EPR portals

Plastic: the Plastic Waste Management Rules, 2016, with the EPR guidelines of February 2022 setting collection, recycling and recycled content targets for packaging; the single use plastic ban of July 2022 is a separate instrument under the same rules.
Electronics: the E Waste (Management) Rules, 2022, in force from April 2023, replaced the 2016 rules, brought in EPR certificates traded on the CPCB portal and set recycling targets that rise year by year.
Batteries: the Battery Waste Management Rules, 2022, cover all batteries, set collection and recycling targets and mandate recycled content in new batteries from 2027, which is where urban mining of lithium and cobalt begins.
Tyres and used oil: EPR was added by amendments to the Hazardous and Other Wastes Rules in 2022 (tyres) and 2023 (used oil).
Vehicles: the End of Life Vehicles (Management) Rules, 2025, put EPR on vehicle producers with scrappage targets by category, alongside the Vehicle Scrappage Policy of 2021.
The 2019 question asked which rules mandate EPR; the answer has changed since, which is why this table exists.

Mains: EPR shifts the cost of waste from the municipality to the producer, but it works only when certificates are real and recyclers are audited, so India's recycling problem has become a compliance problem on a portal.

UPSC has asked

Prelims 2019: the rules in which extended producer responsibility was introduced

Further reading: Extended producer responsibility (UNEP)