Producer Responsibility for Waste Recycling

I attended a lecture on Waste Management in Japan yesterday. The lecturer talked about producer responsibility in which the producer will have to take responsibility for disposing the waste after the life span of the product expired. The responsibility is shared by all parties involved in the production and consumption of the products. For example in the case of packaging box, the logger, the sawmill operator, the paper maker, the cardboard manufacturer, the label printer, the manufacturer who uses the box, the whole seller and dealer of product and finally the consumer. The responsibility should be share in pro-rate.

For reducing their contribution for the cost of disposal, some producers come out the plan for collecting the waste. I saw the placing of a recycling bin next to the vending machine selling Coca-Cola line of products. I believe this is corporate social responsibility in practice. If businesses practice the producer responsibility, the chances of having an effective 3R program will be there for us in Malaysia, I believe.