As you already learned in the general lecture on Economics and Finances in context of Waste Managment and Circular Economy, Extended Producer Responsibility (in the following EPR) is a comparatively modern approach on how waste managment can be financed.

From an economic perspective, waste management operators are offering the service of “removing and treating the waste in an environmentally-friendly way”. For the owner of the waste (the household, businesses/companies/shops and the industry) the short term value bringing them utility is that the waste is removed. Only on the long term can they appreciate the effect of “treating the waste in an environmentally-friendly way”.

As we know from the Infinite Prisioner Dilemma, humans tend to see greater value in short-term effects than long-term. Especially if they do not understand the full consequences of disposing their waste in the environment. Thus they might not be willing to pay a high price for the waste collection and treatment. Education is a possible way on how this can be improved on.
It could also be that the collected fee is also allocated to other services beside from waste management (such as energy supply), which leads to not enough money being put into waste management by the decision makers.

Coupled with the issue above however is also the Tragedy of the Commons introduced by Garret Hardin, where the environment can be understood as a common good. “What use might it have if I pay for my waste disposal if others dispose their waste into the environment without paying anything” - might be a thought that could come in mind following the free-rider concept. Hardin’s only solution to this Dilemma is that the government passes laws forbidding such actions and also is taking care of the monitoring and sanctioning. As a rule existing, does not always mean that it is also complied to.

However, following the concept of Plato’s “Republic” the government is obliged to ensure that it’s citizens are provided with the essentials resources as they are concentrating their time to offer the society a product they themselves are specialised in (e. g. baking delicious bread) but need a variety of products in ordre to survive. In Germany the responsibility of the state to provide all life necessities is called “Daseinsvorsoge”.

Without functioning waste managment hygienic issues in form of air and water pollution as well as disease carriers like rodents and mosquitoes arise. And therefore, a basic human need (health) is endangered if the government cannot ensure a clean environment. Following this string of thouhgts, the government has an obligation to provide waste managment service.

For the provision of this service, the government is allowed to collect fees and/or taxes which were already introduced in the general lecture.

If the collected fees and taxes would be able to cover the costs incurred by waste managment no further discussion would be needed. However, for citizens with a low-income it is already hard to cover the costs for other life necessities such as food; they would not be able to pay the waste fees and might be tempted to dispose of the waste otherwise in order to save the costs as the provison of food and other goods is more valuable to them. Of course this mind-set can also be followed by people with income sufficient to cover their basic needs. However, here the price for waste management is comparitavly low in relation to the overall income and thus the value gained less; which in-turn decreases the incentive to do so.

In order to overcome this lack of funding for waste managment, new ideas were developed to cover the cost. One of these is that producers of goods are also responsible as they are creating profit for themselves without taking into account the full cost their business has incurred by indirectly destroying the environment. This concept is called “extended producer responsibility”. A producer of for example packaging, batteries or electronical devices has to take responsibility and ensure that what they introduced onto the market is also brouhgt back into the system instead of polluting the environment through improper disposal.

Let’s also keep in mind: A more varied selection of tools other than simply enforcing behaviour onto the citizens gives the government a better scope as to how they want to govern. Instead of simply enforcing measurements, they can also give incentives to the citizens, which will lead to a higher level of acceptance and stronger democracy than passing sanction could.

It is important to note here that due to their different history and cultural development, societies have agreed on different values and definitons which both affect their legal framework. Hence what holds true in the German understanding, does not necessairly be true for a different country. However, the way the natural sciences works is universal (just maybe our model of it, might be subjected to flaws) and hence solutions to protect and live in the environment are essential in every country. When implementing the measures for these it is important to interact with the different stakeholders and specialist in law, politics and policy making in order to take into account the individual circumstances in the respective country.