eBay is leading a petition to ensure that Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) rules do not restrict small business’ access to the European Single Market. It calls for a single point of registration and declaration; exemption or de minimis for micro-companies; and permission for online marketplaces to declare products to EPR organizations.
eBay states its intent to ‘support and enable’ the growth of SMEs in Europe and beyond, but highlights the roadblocks sometimes caused by cross-barrier trade.
In its view, the ‘multitude of complex registration procedures’ that EPR requires could be a setback. Registering and selling on an EU marketplace would require 27 different EPR registration numbers, one for each separate country in the EU; this could increase for those selling in multiple product categories, with separate contracts signed for each.
This is described by eBay as a ‘massive administrative burden’. It cites Ecommerce Europe’s statistic that a small business seeking to access the entire Single Market could incur compliance costs of up to €140,000 and amount to 39 working days annually.
eBay aims to maintain the Green Deal’s objectives while safeguarding small business’ access to the Single Market, first by creating a ‘one-stop shop’ for compliance with waste management rules. One point of registration and declaration could be founded, it suggests, either through the business’ country of origin or a dedicated EU portal run by the European Commission.
‘Businesses are already familiar with a one-stop shop system for VAT compliance,’ eBay says – meaning a similar system should not require widespread reform, in theory.
Exemptions and/or de minimis should be available to micro-company in volumes of products sold, the petition continues. Apparently, occasional exporters could benefit from a threshold and/or simplified flat fee systems in efforts to grow their business.
Meanwhile, EPR organizations would no longer bear the financial burden of managing ‘very small’ waste producers, ‘which are often higher than the fees they owe’.
eBay adds that small businesses could more easily start selling in new Member States or EPR categories by delegating their EPR compliance to the online marketplaces they sell their products through. However, online marketplaces are not yet considered “real producers”, since they don’t have physical access to the products sold.
Therefore, the petition argues that the EU should formally recognize that online marketplaces are not “producers” and provide a special regime to help them declare their businesses’ products to EPR organizations ‘in a simplified manner’.
“We stand ready to work with lawmakers to ensure that the future Waste Management rules allow European small businesses to continue to benefit from the EU Single Market,” eBay concludes. “Let’s protect consumers and the environment in a way that enables small and microbusinesses to thrive.”
In a position paper published last year, signatories such as Recycling Netwerk Benelux and Minderoo Foundation called for European legislation to be revised to improve EPR measures. They suggested that the European Commission should establish a new definition of producers to prevent brands and distributors from becoming solely responsible for EPR, while Producer Responsibility Organizations should cover the full costs of EPR in line with the polluter-pays principle.
Additionally, various signatories felt that holding producers responsible for waste management and other external factors would not provide any additional encouragement to redesign products for sustainability – and, if EPR schemes are national rather than international or continental, producers could get a ‘free pass’ for end-of-life management when products are shipped overseas and listed as ‘reusables’. This would force the receiving country to take on the financial burden and enable European producers to keep their own costs low.
A different petition to the European Commission saw Capri Sun Group ask for permission to re-introduce its plastic straws and a create a fully mono-material, recyclable pack. Critics questioned this decision, arguing that the Capri-Sun pouch itself is not yet recyclable; and that, in the words of Zwerfinator litter analyst Dirk Groot, “recycling is no solution for plastic pollution”.
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