EPR - Several new amendments have been made to align with and facilitate businesses under Decree No. 05/2025/NĐ-CP

The Government has issued Decree No. 05/2025/NĐ-CP amending, supplementing regulations under Decree No. 08/2022/NĐ-CP detailing certain provisions of the Law on Environmental Protection, introducing several new regulations on Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) that businesses, manufacturers, and importers need to be aware of.

Illustration (Source: A Chau Environment)

Entities subject to recycling obligation

According to the 2020 Law on Environment Protection, the recycling responsibility for products and packaging is applied to 6 groups of products and goods, including: Tires and tubes; batteries, including car batteries; lubricants; packaging products (foods, cosmetics, medicines, fertilizers, animal feeds, veterinary drugs, cement, detergents and household, agricultural, and medical preparations); electrical and electronic products; vehicles.

Meanwhile, the responsibility for waste collection and treatment applies to 5 groups of products and packaging, including: Pesticides; single-use batteries; diapers, pads, wet wipes; chewing gum, cigarettes; certain products and goods containing synthetic plastics such as balloons, toys, footwear, clothing, single-use plastic products, single-use products, furnitures, construction materials and small non-biodegradable plastic bags… 

According to this regulation, manufacturers, importers of chewing gum must fulfill both the responsibility for recycling packaging and waste collection and treatment, this is not logical since a single product is subject to two obligations.

To resolve the above issue, the Decree No. 05/2025/NĐ-CP amends and clearly states that, the manufacturers, importers of chewing gum are not required to fulfill the recycling obligation for its commercial chewing gum packaging.

Additionally, the Decree No. 05/2025/NĐ-CP amends and states that manufacturers, importers that distribute packaged products on the market but subsequently collect and reuse it for repackaging and redistribution (mainly for bottled water and beverages) are not required to fulfill the recycling obligation for such packaging.

Notably, the determination of whether a business must fulfill the packaging recycling obligation is based on the revenue from the recyclable packaged products, excluding revenue from non-recyclable products and import value. This amendment is crucial and facilitates manufacturers and importers while implementing the EPR policy.

The mandatory recycling rate and recycling specifications

According to the Decree No. 05/2025/NĐ-CP, the mandatory recycling rate is the minimum percentage of product and packaging mass that must be collected and recycled according to the mandatory recycling specifications in the implementation year over the total mass of products, packaging manufactured, imported and distributed on the market in the obligated year.

The mandatory recycling rate for each type of product, packaging is determined based on its lifecycle, disposal rate, collection rate of the product, packaging; the national recycling goal, the environmental protection requirements and socio-economic conditions of each period.

The mandatory recycling rate for each type of product, packaging in the first three years is clearly defined and is adjusted every three years, gradually increasing to meet the national recycling goal and the environmental protection requirements.

Manufacturers, importers can recycle the products and packaging they produce, import, or recycle the products, packaging of the same type from other manufacturers, importers to meet the mandatory recycling rate. However, the recycling of imported scrap; packaging waste generated from industrial production; and defective products discarded during manufacturing is not counted toward the mandatory recycling rate of manufacturers and importers.

The most notable update in Decree No. 05/2025/QĐ-CP is the mandatory recycling specifications. Accordingly, the mandatory recycling specifications are the recycling solutions selected for each product and packaging, without requiring the minimum amount of recovered materials, fuels in recycling products, packaging as previously mandated.

The entities responsible for waste collection and treatment under EPR remain unchanged.

Timeline for implementing the recycling obligation 

The Decree No. 05/2025/NĐ-CP has promptly amended and introduced regulations that align with the current situation of implementing recycling responsibilities, especially the timing for its implementation. Accordingly, the responsibility for recycling products and packaging will be implemented after the end of the year, based on the actual number of products manufactured, imported and distributed to the market rather than being implemented from the beginning of the year as previously required. 

Thus, manufacturers and importers who have organized recycling (fulfilling the recycling responsibility for distributed products in 2024) according to the registered plan for 2024, the recycled volume will be allowed to carry over to be counted toward the recycling results in 2025.

In cases where manufacturers and importers choose the financial contribution option, they must make a one-time payment before April 20 of the declared year.

Source: According to the Electronic Information Portal of the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment, “EPR - several amendments have been made to align with and facilitate businesses, published on January 17, 2025, more at link  https://monre.gov.vn/moi-truong/epr--nhieu-diem-moi-duoc-sua-doi-phu-hop-va-tao-dieu-kien-cho-doanh-nghiep-17418.htm, access date 02/20/2025.