What is Product Stewardship?

Product stewardship revisits the question, “who is responsible for the health and environmental impacts of a product – including at end-of-life?” In the past, local governments typically have been responsible for providing disposal or recycling for products. This has become more challenging and more expensive as products are increasingly designed with toxic materials and without consideration of what happens when they are no longer wanted.

With product stewardship, manufacturers and retailers are responsible for the health and environmental impacts of the products they make and sell. Manufacturers take responsibility for sustainable product design up-front and pay for recycling or disposal at end-of-life. Product stewardship is therefore often called producer responsibility or shared responsibility. Although not well known in the U.S., product stewardship has taken hold in the European Union, Canada, Japan, South Korea and elsewhere, and is being applied to many different products.

British Columbia’s Medications Return Program is an example of a product stewardship approach. The program is implemented and funded by about a hundred brand-owners of pharmaceuticals, in cooperation with over 850 participating pharmacies, and has been in operation for more than 10 years. Industry funding makes B.C.’s program possible, and industry funding would allow Washington’s two-year medicine return pilot project to become an ongoing, long-term program.

Product Stewardship is an environmental management strategy that means whoever designs, produces, sells, or uses a product takes responsibility for minimizing the product's environmental impact throughout all stages of the products' life cycle. The greatest responsibility lies with whoever has the most ability to affect the lifecycle environmental impacts of the product.

-From Northwest Product Stewardship Council website

To learn more about producer responsibility and product stewardship, visit:

Northwest Product Stewardship Council's website

British Columbia's Medications Return Program website