The concept of "shared product responsibility" is based on a systems or life cycle approach. Shared product responsibility recognizes that each person or entity who comes into contact with a product takes responsibility for managing the product for that moment in time and further enables them to influence the system upstream and downstream. Each player is recognized for having a role and responsibility that relates to their position in the system. See Summer 1997 article.
Perhaps the best way to understand the importance of each player is to think of a relay team. Winning requires the smooth transfer of the baton from one runner to the next; each runner must perform to his or her maximum potential when carrying the baton. A weak or non-performing runner results in a loss or at a minimum a slower time for the race. The reward or medal for winning is not given to one runner, it is given to all team members.
Managing a product's life cycle is very similar. Each player in the system has a different but important role. There are two activities that each player must be aware of - the task at hand when the product is physically in their control, and the cooperation required to ensure that the product is passed along to the next player in the system. Even when the product is passed, the player is responsible to encourage the other players to operate at peak performance - just as you would provide support to the runner carrying the baton before and after you.
What weighs most favourably for shared product responsibility is that it puts the ability to control cost into the hand of the individual holding the product at that point in time. In "Factor Four: The New Report to the Club of Rome" Amory Lovins et al note that "simply throwing money at a problem does not normally lead to elegant solutions. Not surprisingly, present-day waste management is less than elegant." As evidenced in many OECD countries, when the waste issue became high profile on the political agenda, the temptation was to throw big money at it.
In Ontario, private and public sector money was put up when industry and the province launched the Blue Box. Municipalities took advantage of the money available. However, in recent years municipalities have been expected to operate the system on their own. Some municipalities developed philosophies to take responsibility for waste management. They introduced concepts like user pay to provide incentives for maximum diversion and sustainability. Other municipalities want out of the cost and responsibility of waste management, they insist on the province and industry providing subsidies. However, funding does not address the root cause of the problem.
Municipalities should accept responsibility for waste. Each consumer/householder should be responsible for their individual waste disposition decisions. Collectively the consumer/householder is represented by the municipality in which they reside. Municipalities should provide their citizens with the options for making waste management environmentally and economically sustainable.
Shared responsibility is each player taking a role and the responsibility that relates to their position in the system. As in a relay race, when the baton for waste management is passed into the hands of municipalities, they should run with it.
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