An EPR compliance and waste marketplace is a marketplace for waste, together with compliance software for brands that must meet the rule on extended producer responsibility (EPR). Under India's plastic waste rules, a company that sells goods in plastic packaging, whether it makes, imports or brands them, must make sure that a set quantity of plastic is collected and recycled. Since 2023-24, the target is the full quantity of plastic packaging the company sold, averaged over the last two years. A rising share of that quantity must also be recycled, not only collected. The company that sells the product is responsible for the packaging, even after the customer has thrown it away.
A brand cannot collect its own packaging from every street and landfill. So it pays recyclers and waste collectors to do it. A waste marketplace connects the two sides. Collectors and recyclers list the plastic they have collected and recycled. The software records the weight, the type of plastic and the recycler, and keeps proof. A brand then buys from the marketplace the quantity it owes, and uses the proof to report to the government on the central pollution control board's portal.
Take, for example, a beverage brand that sold an average of 500 tonnes of plastic bottles a year over the last two years, so its target is 500 tonnes. It buys that quantity from recyclers through the marketplace, which gives it a record of each lot, from the collector to the recycler. The record for one lot shows that a collector in Indore gathered 20 tonnes of bottles, a recycler washed and shredded them, and the recycler's weighbridge slip matched the weight. The brand uploads the records in its yearly return.
The proof matters because EPR certificates were once easy to fake, with the same tonne counted twice or never recycled. Software that ties each lot to weighbridge slips and invoices makes such a claim easier to catch. For the collector, who is often a small waste picker or a small dealer, the marketplace gives a buyer and a fair price.
The records depend on track and trace, because each lot must be followed from collection to recycling. The brand knows how much plastic each pack uses from packaging design software. The waste data also feeds carbon accounting software. The whole area is described in sustainability management.