After giving an outline of Korean Waste Recycling system, we review the policy change in Korea's EPR scheme of waste products from deposit-refund system to the system of producers' responsibility for recycling, examine comparatively the structure of each of the two systems, and the stakeholders' shares in financial responsibility for recycling in each case, and perform an economic analysis of their functions as incentive-makers. We evaluate the system of Producers' Recycling responsibility with respect to how much it contributes to the functioning of the principle of Extended Producers Responsibility, as compared with the previous economic incentive scheme of deposit-refund system applied to producers. As for their logical bases, both systems lay the minimal standards which the government gives with regard to the producers' obligation of environmental preservation, within which constraints producers are allowed to take the responsibility for the management of their waste products in the market. As for their approaches, the guideline laid by the deposit-refund system was given by prices, whereas the guideline of producers' recycling responsibility system is given by quantities. Both systems have their respective merits and demerits. Noticeably, in the system of producers' responsibility for recycling, as actually practiced until now, producers discharge their recycling duty with just paying the recycling fees, not for the total quantities of their products put on the market, but only for the assigned recycling quantity, with the result that producers do not fulfill their products responsibility so much as in the deposit-refund scheme. There remains the potential controversies as to whether the present system of producers' recycling responsibility is likely to promote the mass consumption, mass production and mass recycling, and to exempt the producers from the responsibility to treat the waste products beyond the recycling quota given each year by the government. Hence the necessity for the improvement of the system so that producers are more motivated to enhance the effectiveness of collecting, selecting and recycling their waste products, and to make investment for the design for "3Rs"(reduce, reuse, & recycling), in conformity with the original extent that producers take their due responsibility for the environmental impacts of their products in their life-cycles.

After giving an outline of Korean Waste Recycling system, we review the policy change in Korea's EPR scheme of waste products from deposit-refund system to the system of producers' responsibility for recycling, examine comparatively the structure of each of the two systems, and the stakeholders' shares in financial responsibility for recycling in each case, and perform an economic analysis of their functions as incentive-makers. We evaluate the system of Producers' Recycling responsibility with respect to how much it contributes to the functioning of the principle of Extended Producers Responsibility, as compared with the previous economic incentive scheme of deposit-refund system applied to producers. As for their logical bases, both systems lay the minimal standards which the government gives with regard to the producers' obligation of environmental preservation, within which constraints producers are allowed to take the responsibility for the management of their waste products in the market. As for their approaches, the guideline laid by the deposit-refund system was given by prices, whereas the guideline of producers' recycling responsibility system is given by quantities. Both systems have their respective merits and demerits. Noticeably, in the system of producers' responsibility for recycling, as actually practiced until now, producers discharge their recycling duty with just paying the recycling fees, not for the total quantities of their products put on the market, but only for the assigned recycling quantity, with the result that producers do not fulfill their products responsibility so much as in the deposit-refund scheme. There remains the potential controversies as to whether the present system of producers' recycling responsibility is likely to promote the mass consumption, mass production and mass recycling, and to exempt the producers from the responsibility to treat the waste products beyond the recycling quota given each year by the government. Hence the necessity for the improvement of the system so that producers are more motivated to enhance the effectiveness of collecting, selecting and recycling their waste products, and to make investment for the design for "3Rs"(reduce, reuse, & recycling), in conformity with the original extent that producers take their due responsibility for the environmental impacts of their products in their life-cycles.

Waste recycling system, EPR (Extended Producers Responsibility), Deposit refund system, Recycling quota, Economic incentive