Port Blair, Oct. 18: Extended Producers Responsibility (EPR) regime under Plastic Waste Management Rules, refers to responsibility of Producers, Importers and Brand-owners including producers and manufacturers of compostable plastics to ensure processing of their plastic packaging waste through recycling, re-use or end of life disposal (such as co-processing/ Waste-to-energy/ Plastic to oil/ road making/ industrial-composting).
In order to streamline implementation process of EPR, the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change, Government of India, in its fourth Amendment to the Plastic Waste Management Rules, dated February 16, 2022, notified ‘Guidelines on Extended Producer Responsibility for Plastic Packaging’ in the Schedule II of the Rules.
Accordingly, the Centralized EPR Portal has been developed to register PIBOs who are operating in more than two States with CPCB and those operating in one or two States/UTs shall be registered with the concerned State Pollution Control Boards (SPCBs). Plastic Waste Processors shall also have to register with the concerned SPCB/PCC in accordance with the provisions of the Section 13(3) of the Plastic Waste Management Rules, 2016 on this centralized portal. The EPR Portal for Plastic Packaging provides provision for registration of PIBOs/ PWPS in accordance with the notified EPR Guidelines.
All the Producers, Importers and Brand Owners (PIBOs) and Plastic Waste Processors (PWPs) are hereby directed to register through the Centralized EPR Portal developed by the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB). Action, as deemed fit under Environment Protection Act, 1986 including levying of Environmental Compensation as per the Guidelines shall be taken against the defaulter.
A meeting will be convened under the Chairmanship of Secretary (S&T) A&N Administration in Mini Conference Hall of Secretariat on 20-10-2022 at 03:30 pm to discuss various issues regarding registration of (PIBOs) and Plastic Waste Processors (PWPs) in Centralized EPR Portal. All PIBOs &PWPs [including those who were previously registered in A&N EPR portal (https://anepr.andaman.gov.in/)] are hereby requested to attend the Meeting.
Definitions as per Guidelines on Extended Producer Responsibility and Link of EPR portal are as under-
―Producer means person engaged in manufacture or import of carry bags or multilayered packaging or plastic sheets or like, and includes industries or individuals using plastic sheets or like or covers made of plastic sheets or multilayered packaging for packaging or wrapping the commodity;
―Importer means a person who imports plastic packaging product or products with plastic packaging or carry bags or multilayered packaging or plastic sheets or like;
― “Brand Owner” means a person or company who sells any commodity under a registered brand label or trade mark;
―Plastic Waste Processors means recyclers and entities engaged in using plastic waste for energy (waste to energy), and converting it to oil (waste to oil), industrial composting.
The link to register in the Centralized EPR portal is provided below:
https://eprplastic.cpcb.gov.in/
Further, the SOP for registration of PIBOs and PWPs can be downloaded respectively with the links provided below:
https://eprplastic.cpcb.gov.in/plastic/downloads/SOP%20PIBOS_0001.pdf
https://eprplastic.cpcb.gov.in/plastic/downloads/SOP%20PWP_0001.pdf