Pollutants firms to pay fine, face criminal charges from 2015

Considering the spate of non-compliance with Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) policy by manufacturing firms, the Federal Government will from 2015 apply series of sanctions on errants as part of efforts to create healthy and sustainable environment.

The sanctions which are to be meted out from next January are to ensure that companies cooperate and keep to the end of their bargain of re-acquiring their end products from the consumers.

They include monetary penalties and legal actions to defaulting firms to deter others in the bid of the agency to make the environment save for all.

“ They will pay fine and if the errant refuses to pay the fine, criminal charges will be filed against him” disclosed Ngeri Benebo, Director- General, National Environmental Standards and Regulations Agency (NESREA).

The EPR programme was set up to ensure that companies buy back the end products from their users to ensure the sanitisation of the environment. A procedure that is tuned towards ‘the polluter pays’ principle.

It is also an environmental policy approach in which a producer’s responsibility for a product is extended to the post-consumer stage of a product’s life cycle.

Firms affected by this policy include those using bottles, can, sachet, plastic and others to package their products.

This category are expected to buy-back the empty containers after the products have been consumed.

Prior to the implementation of this policy, federal government had asked companies with products that have end products to set up collection centre where they can buy-back their end products.

Government has also given the companies enough grace to comply and also provide infrastructure that will take off some of the burden of cleaning up the environment.

“We have not started applying the sanctions, we are giving them till next year to be able to put everything in place. But before the end of this year, they must have their producer responsibility organisation”.