How many things do you throw away, without much thought?
Extended Producer Responsibility is a philosophy and program whose time has more than come. We have more consumer goods than ever before and never have they been more disposable to most people. We toss out appalling amounts of possessions. In the past, most, if not all of these items were made to last -- some for a lifetime or more (appliances, furniture, clothing). There's truth to the argument that we don't take care of our things like people used to, repairing and refurbishing them to make them last. But there's also a lot of truth to the adage that they just don't make them like they used to.
Producers must shoulder a large portion of the blame for our ever-growing mountains of waste. Planned obsolescence has been taken to the extreme, with even big ticket items like water heaters not expected to last more than one short decade. The lifespan of clothing items is ridiculous. And speaking of changing fashions, furniture, which once would have been passed from generation to generation is now not expected to last more than a few years.
For far too long producers of these goods were free to shorten the lifespan of their products without any consequence other than increasing sales, while the public paid the price with mountains of junk piling up in landfills.
Entended Producer Responsibility programs like the ones in B.C. aim to make producers responsible for more of the lifecycle of what they make -- all the way through to post-consumer. Hopefully this will change the cost-benefit equation of churning out products that are going to fail and become garbage in short order. If producers must pay for them after their demise, there's more incentive to make better, longer lasting stuff, or at least repairable stuff. Because people chucking it out suddenly becomes a cost for them.
It also helps local governments that collect garbage in communities.
The B.C. government was set to include mattresses in their EPR program, but have delayed implementation. They've said they don't want to make mattresses cost more for people, since presumably the producers would pass on end of life costs to consumers. But the problem is that we're already paying in the form of tipping fees and illegal dumping. The Cowichan Valley Regional District is increasing its tipping fees for mattresses from $18 to $32 per unit next year because their costs for getting rid of them have increased. The CVRD could reduce its solid-waste budget by $100,000 a year if the province went ahead with the EPR program.
We can't afford to ignore the true cost any longer, and must make producers take responsibility.