Page - 288 - in Freshwater Microplastics - Emerging Environmental Contaminants?

communication).Withouttheinfrastructurewidelyavailabletorecyclebio-basedand biodegradable plastics,manufacturers are aiming for compostability in compliance withorganicwastediversion initiatives. ExtendedProducerResponsibility (EPR) There is awide agreement thatwaste managementmust be improved, includingpublic access to recycling, composting, and waste handling facilities. Equally, there is a need to improve the design of products andpackaging to facilitate recovery in thefirst place.Regulatingprimary microplastics has been successful withmicrobeads and preproduction pellets, yet there are many characteristics of product and packaging design that could be improved tominimize the trickle of irrecoverablemicroplastics from terrestrial to aquatic environments. Product and packaging design must move “beyond the baseline engineering quality and safety specifications to consider the environmental, economic and social factors,” as explained in “Design through the 12 Principles ofGreenEngi- neering”[91].Whendesigningfor thefull lifecycleofaproduct,manufacturesand designers talkwith recyclers to reduceenvironmental impactsby improving recov- ery, whichmay include avoidingmixedmaterials or laminates, reduced toxicity, and ease of repair, reuse, and disassembly, as well as the systems that move materials between consumer and the end-of-life plan. Reducingmicroplastic for- mationbydesignmightalsoincludeeliminatingtearawaypackaging(openingchip/ candy wrappers, individual straw/toothpick covers), small detached components (bottle caps and safety rings), or small single-use throw-away products (coffee stirrers, straws,bullets in toyair rifles).Thesemitigationscanbevoluntary,butare oftenpolicy-driven through fees or bans [92]. Extendedproducer responsibility is a public policy toolwhereby producers are made legally andfinancially responsible formitigating the environmental impacts of theirproducts.Whenadopted throughlegislation, it codifies therequirement that the producer’s responsibility for their product extends to postconsumer manage- ment of that product and its packaging.With EPR, the responsible legal party is usually the brandowner of the product. EPR is closely related to the concept of “product stewardship,” whereby pro- ducers takeactiontominimizethehealth, safety,environmental,andsocial impacts ofaproduct throughout its lifecycle stages.Producers’beingrequired to takeback and recycle electronic equipment through the EU’sWaste of Electrical andElec- tronic Equipment (WEEE) Directive is an example of EPR. The Closed Loop Fund – which accepts corporate money to loan to US municipalities to boost packagingrecycling– isanexampleofvoluntaryproduct stewardship [93].Differ- ent schemes of EPR have been implemented [94], and even though some first success is achieved in recycling of plastics and other packaging products [95], thesesystemsstill requiremanyimprovements rangingfromeconomicmodels [96] to logistic aspects [97]. WhileEPRhas primarily been applied as amaterialsmanagement strategy, the conceptcanalsobeapplied toplasticpollutionpreventionandmitigation. In2013, theNaturalResourcesDefenseCouncilhelpedadvancehowEPRcanmoredirectly 288 M.Eriksen et al.