Expdonaloaded News; NESREA to begin enforcement of EPR policy

THE National Environmental Standards and Regulations Enforcement Agency (NESREA) has announced its determination to commence the enforcement of the Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) policy in the first quarter of 2016.

This was disclosed recently by the agency’s Director General, Dr. Lawrence Anukam, at a two-day workshop with stakeholders organised in Lagos to further sensitise companies in the food and beverage sector, in particular, on the EPR operational guidelines released by the agency last year.
Anukam said the EPR is “the extension of the responsibility of producers, and all entities involved in the product chain, to reduce the cradle-to-cradle impacts of a product and its packaging.”
He stressed that the primary responsibility of EPR lies with the producer, who makes design and marketing decisions, noting that as a concept and tool, the EPR has become a global best practice operated successfully in several developed and developing countries to deal with the environmental, social and economic challenges of packaging waste.
While deploring what he described as the slow response by industries generally to the policy, the Director General acknowledged and commended the exemplary commitment to the EPR programme demonstrated by the Nigerian Beverage Alliance, a growing coalition of beverage companies founded by Coca-Cola in collaboration with Nigerian Bottling Company, Nestle Nigeria, Nigerian Breweries and Seven Up Bottling Company.