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Product Stewardship
Product stewardship means that all parties involved in designing, manufacturing, selling and using a product take responsibility for environmental impacts at every stage of that product's life.
A few manufacturers of carpet, primarily those producing for commercial applications, have initiated programs targeting the recovery of waste carpet. Currently however, government bears much of the responsibility for managing waste carpet rather than those who produce, sell and use the product.
Principles of product stewardship
- All purchasers and users are responsible for reducing the amount of toxicity and waste that result from their use and disposal of products, and for using products in a manner that conserves resources.
- Reducing or eliminating the toxic and hazardous constituents of products and product components.
- Reducing the toxicity and amount of waste that results from the manufacture, use and disposal of products.
- Using materials, energy and water efficiently at every stage of a product's life cycle, including product manufacture, distribution, sale, use and recovery.
- All purchasers and users are responsible for reducing the amount of toxicity and waste that result from their use and disposal of products, and for using products in a manner that conserves resources.
- The greater the ability of a party to influence the life-cycle impacts of the product, the greater the degree of responsibility the party has for addressing those impacts.
- Parties responsible for addressing environmental impacts of products have flexibility in determining how to best address those impacts.
- The costs of recovering resources and managing products at the end of life are internalized into the costs of producing and selling products, so that those costs are not paid for by government.
- Government provides leadership in product stewardship in all its activities, including but not limited to, promoting product stewardship in purchasing products, making capital investments in buildings and infrastructure, procuring services, and ensuring products are recycled or properly managed at the end of their useful lives.