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Home > Resources > 3Rs Lifestyle > Voluntary Stewardship

Voluntary Stewardship Programs — Do They Work?

Some companies or industries have voluntarily taken control of the “end-of-life” of their products. Motivation for voluntary stewardship programs can vary. Some companies may be responding to the threat of regulation, others may have adopted environmental policies that lead them to develop programs to recover their products and packages.

Whether or not it is possible for an individual company to develop a stewardship program for its products will depend on the type of product, how it is distributed and on how it is processed at the end of its useful life.

Sometimes it makes more sense for companies in the same industry to come together to try and manage their wastes. This requires that competitors agree on a program, which can be a difficult task.

Voluntary programs can develop a “free-rider” problem. They can’t force every competitor to contribute to the program and thus could end up paying to handle products from companies who haven’t contributed any fees. For this reason, industry often insists that government provide backdrop stewardship regulations.

Voluntary programs can sometimes be initiated more quickly and with more flexibility than regulated programs. Developing and passing new legislation or regulations to support a program can be time consuming.

Voluntary programs are accountable only to the industry that they represent. Unlike regulated programs, they aren’t required to report publicly on how well their program is working (although they often do) and they aren’t accountable to the public or government.

Voluntary programs seem to work best when the number of companies in the industry is fairly small. It’s easier to gather up the free riders and bring them in to the program and easier to decide on program attributes when fewer people are involved.

Among the voluntary stewardship programs available are:

  • the agricultural pesticide container collection program
  • rechargeable battery recycling program
  • the milk container collection program

[Source: March 2005 WasteWatch]

 

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