EPR Regulations 2024: KEPSA’s Recommendations for Sustainable Waste Management in Kenya
Scientific data reveal that Kenya faces an existential threat due to the increasing extent and magnitude of the three planetary crises- biodiversity loss, climate change, and pollution. In the contemporary era, most businesses in Kenya operate in a “planned obsolescence” grounded in the take-make-waste economic model. The model poses significant ecological harm due to overexploitation of scarce resources beyond their regenerative capacities, increased emissions, and waste generation. Unsustainable consumption behaviour among consumers and the general public exacerbates the challenges of littering and dumping, reducing nature’s aesthetic value and the ability of ecosystems to function normally. Due to increasing sustainability instigated by linear economic models, international and regional conventions, and national policy priorities recognise that transitioning to sustainable consumption and production patterns is imperative to align businesses, anthropogenic practices, and lifestyles to the sustainability agenda.
Circular economy approaches have been hailed as an ideal pathway to assist businesses in phasing out problematic and unnecessary inputs and outputs, adopting cleaner production technologies, and upholding waste minimisation through resource efficiency, reusing, recycling, and upcycling. Kenya boasts an intricate legal framework that seeks to galvanise the public and private sectors to comprehend and shift to more environmentally friendly circular business models and activities that uphold green economic growth, environmental conservation, and social progress. The newly gazetted Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) Regulations 2024, derived from Section 13 of the Sustainable Waste Management Act 2022, seek to hold producers accountable for recovering waste from their products at the post-consumer phase. cycle. Furthermore, introducing EPR regulations in Kenya advocates for increased awareness of responsible consumption, production, and collective action to share roles and responsibilities to promote the circular economy agenda.
Businesses commonly referred to as producers under the EPR Regulations 2024 must register their EPR compliance schemes with the National Environmental Management Authority (NEMA). Compliance with the EPR scheme falls under two categories- an individual scheme, where producers pay Ksh. 5,000 or a collective scheme where businesses join a producer responsibility organisation (PRO) and pay Ksh. 10,000 one-off registrations. Producers in the individual scheme are obligated to pay Ksh. 50,000 while a PRO will pay Ks. 100,000 annual licence.
The Kenya Private Sector Alliance (KEPSA), through its various platforms such as the Environment, Water, and Natural Resources Sector Board, Sustainable Inclusive Business Kenya, and the Kenya Plastics Pact, has been engaged in developing the EPR Regulations 2024. The apex body of the private sector in Kenya advocated for a legal framework for a compulsory EPR scheme to assist businesses in bearing responsibility for their waste at the post-consumer phase. KEPSA collaborated with NEMA and other industry players to raise awareness on the benefits of compliance with the EPR Regulations through knowledge transfer sessions held in Nairobi, Mombasa, Nakuru, and other parts of the country.
KEPSA envisages that implementing the EPR will strengthen Kenya’s ambitions to create green employment opportunities in waste collection, recycling, repair, and refurbishing, as well as efforts to develop business models such as designing packaging products for longevity. The Kenya Plastic Pact aims to create a circular economy for plastics packaging, assisting businesses in eliminating packaging materials with lower recycling rates and those with widespread environmental harm, such as single-use packaging items. The private sector body has developed a Brand and PRO Guidance, a document providing step-by-step guidance on preparing an EPR plan, registering with the NEMA, and engaging other relevant actors, including Producer Responsibility Organizations (PROs) and waste service providers, to comply with the regulations.
From left Ms Winnie( KEPRO) Dr. Ayub Macharia (NEMA) and Ms Gachugi (PAKPRO) during the inaugural circular economy awards at the Circular Economy Conference & Awards 2024. KEPRO and PAKPRO are the major PRO's in Kenya and were recognized for their efforts
While EPR presents ultimate goals to support the transition to circular and sustainable economic models, implementing the regulations must avoid disrupting the country’s fragile economic growth. The First Schedule of the Regulations captures a list of products subject to an EPR import fee of Ksh. 150. The products include packaging items for non-hazardous and hazardous products packaging, among others, with the EPR import fee charged per item of secondary packaging. The introduction of the Ksh. 150 EPR fee for imported goods may lead to increased production costs, with the additional cost transferred to consumers through hiked prices. Therefore, feedback from most businesses recommends moving from a per-item/ secondary packaging flat EPR fee model to a percentage-based levy on a Free on Board (FOB) value per consignment. For example, charging x% on the total consignment value will create a fairer, risk-based, and proportional fee structure, where higher-value, higher-risk goods contribute more while protecting low-value essential goods from punitive costs. Recommendation is also made to exempt raw materials from the EPR import fee to avoid increasing the production costs and disrupting economic growth.
