General Context

Under traditional legal provisions, a manufacturer’s responsibility is limited to the product’s consumption phase, such as responsibility for product quality and safety, and product warranty obligations. However, with the rapid development of the Law on Environmental Protections, manufacturers’ environmental responsibilities have been increasingly expanded. The most common form of this expansion is the extension of responsibility to the product’s disposal stage. Accordingly, a manufacturer’s responsibility does not end at the consumption stage but also includes the responsibility to collect, recycle, and treat products after consumption—a concept known as Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR). This expansion of responsibility stems from the “polluter pays” principle. Under this principle, even if a product has been sold outright to a consumer, if its disposal after use has the potential to cause environmental pollution, the manufacturer—as the party that introduced the product into the market and the environment—must be responsible for collecting, recycling, and disposing of that product. Although the law establishes this responsibility for the manufacturer, it is a shared responsibility. Manufacturers can share this responsibility with other manufacturers, distributors, consumers, and collection and recycling entities by designing products that are easy to collect and recycle; reducing or substituting materials subject to EPR; incorporating the costs of implementing EPR into product prices; and collaborating with distributors to collect products for recycling.

 

EPR regulations were first implemented in the Federal Republic of Germany in 1990 and were subsequently expanded to other European countries to address the massive volume of post-consumer waste, particularly packaging. They were later adopted in North American countries and then in Northeast Asia, such as South Korea, Japan, and Taiwan. The EPR models vary from country to country. However, in general, EPR is implemented through the following models:

  • Collective responsibility model, where producers collaborate to fulfill their EPR obligations. This model can be organized and implemented by either the government or the private sector:
  • Government-organized implementation: Producers contribute financially to a government-managed fund, as in Taiwan.
  • Private-sector implementation: manufacturers form a Product Responsibility Organization (PRO) or join an existing PRO to organize the collection and recycling of post-consumer products, as in European countries.
  • The individual responsibility model allows manufacturers to independently organize separate collection and recycling to fulfill EPR obligations, as in South Korea and Vietnam. This individual model is rarely used because it does not optimize the costs of implementing EPR.
  • A hybrid model combining collective and individual responsibility, as in South Korea and Vietnam. The hybrid model allows manufacturers to choose from multiple implementation methods. Notably, this model permits financial contributions to a state-managed fund, helping businesses fulfill their obligations when collection and recycling infrastructure is insufficient. The government uses these contributions to enhance collection and recycling capacity.

 

The Development of EPR in Vietnam from the 2005 Law on Environmental Protection to the Present

EPR has been applied in Vietnam since the 2005 Law on Environmental Protection, with provisions in Article 67 regarding the recovery and treatment of products that have reached the end of their useful life or have been discarded. This responsibility applies to manufacturers and importers who place the following products on the market: Radioactive sources used in production, business, and services; batteries and accumulators; electronic, household, and industrial electrical equipment; motor oils, lubricants, and packaging that is not naturally biodegradable; pharmaceuticals and chemicals used in industry, agriculture, and aquaculture; human medicines; vehicles; and tires.

To implement this regulation, on August 9, 2013, the Prime Minister issued Decision No. 50/2013/QĐ-TTg. Accordingly, manufacturers are responsible for establishing collection points for discarded products; notifying the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment (MONRE) of the collection points; and reporting the quantity of products manufactured or imported that have been sold on the Vietnamese market, as well as the results of the collection and disposal of discarded products. These provisions were carried forward into the 2014 Law on Environmental Protection and its detailed implementing regulations (such as Decision No. 16/2015/QD-TTg and Circular No. 34/2017/TT-BTNMT).