Existing waste law is in in crisis. Novel legal interventions are needed to deal with unsustainable amounts of waste generated ‘upstream’ (extraction, processing), ‘mid-stream’ (product design, materials), and ‘downstream’ (repair, refurbishment, recycling). This panel brought together case study examples that explore innovative legal interventions to prevent and manage waste throughout the entire material life-cycle.

By requiring industrial operators to develop circular economy plans, energy and material intensity could be reduced, minimising waste upstream. Best Available Techniques (BAT) requirements, under environmental permitting regulations, aim to prevent or reduce emissions and impacts on the environment. Techniques include the technology used and how an installation is designed, built, maintained, operated, and decommissioned. Feja Lesniewska's paper will explore whether incorporating circular economy principles into BAT requirements could enable a faster transition to sustainable net zero business practices amongst energy and material intensive industrial operators in the UK.

Katrien Steenmans’s paper discusses the findings of a scoping review and survey on legal risks of a tool that can have upstream, mid-stream, and/or downstream components: Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR). EPR is where producers or sellers of a product retain responsibility or liability for the product throughout its life-cycle. The paper contributes to discussions on perceptions of legal risk, types of legal risk, and who is impacted by legal risk.

Allison Lindner’s paper advances the idea that the formalisation of waste pickers, informal waste workers who collect and sell recyclables for a living, is crucial to improving recycling rates. Formalisation can provide things, such as entrepreneurial and training opportunities, and more access to waste for this vulnerable group. However, despite the gains to be made through the monitoring of waste-related economic activities, the resources required to formalise have disincentivised it, which is explored through a Johannesburg case study.

The session was chaired by Prof Rosalind Malcolm.