The Product Lifecycle Responsibility Bill 2025 (NSW) (Bill) passed both Houses of Parliament last Friday and is now waiting Assent. The objective of this Bill is to ensure that product suppliers are responsible for minimising the impact their products have on human health and the environment, supporting principles of a circular economy. This is nation-leading reform and gives the NSW Government the strongest powers in Australia to regulate product stewardship.
Overview
The Bill proposes a new Act, the Product Lifecycle Responsibility Act 2025 (NSW) (Act), which would establish a product stewardship scheme for brand owners of certain products. The Act is a first step, setting up a framework to allow the Government to introduce product stewardship schemes so that brand owners are held accountable for products across their life cycles including potential risks to safety or the environment.
The second step is to draft regulations, under the powers conferred in the Act, to mandate product stewardship schemes on certain classes of products. These regulations would outline the specific requirements brand owners must follow, regarding “the development, design, creation, production, assembly, supply, use or re-use, collection, recovery, recycling or disposal of the regulated product”. Additionally, the Act governs stewardship administration agreements, which are written agreements between the regulator and a product stewardship organisation in connection with a regulated product. Ultimately, as the Act is a framework for how regulations and regulated products are managed, regulations are needed before certain parts of the Act are enlivened.
While the Act could be applied to any product, it is prompted by, and initially pertains to batteries. If batteries are improperly designed, damaged or mishandled, or incorrectly disposed of, they can pose a variety of risks. The growing number of lithium-ion batteries in the community has resulted in an increase in battery fires and incidents, with an estimated 10,000 – 12,000 fires per year resulting from lithium-ion batteries in waste facilities and recycling trucks, and another 200 – 300 across NSW in homes, garages, and other buildings. These fires are particularly hot and difficult to extinguish, exposing emergency responders to potentially serious safety and health consequences. Additionally, there is a risk that hazardous chemicals in batteries can leak into landfills, and potentially make their way into surrounding waterways.
The disposal of small household batteries in NSW is currently managed through a voluntary product stewardship scheme, B-cycle. Embedded batteries, such as those found in electronic toothbrushes, e-bikes, and vacuum cleaners can be dropped off at select Community Recycling Centres in a trial initiated by the EPA. Being voluntary, only 15.3 per cent of batteries available for recycling are being collected by the B-cycle scheme. Comparatively, the success of Return and Earn, adopted under the Waste Avoidance and Resource Recovery Act 2001 (NSW), demonstrates that mandatory product stewardship can be a very effective model to increase circularity. Of the roughly one billion containers supplied into NSW in the last three months, 615.3 million were returned via the return point network.
Implications
The Act allows the Minister to prescribe, by regulation, requirements on products across their entire lifecycle. This supports circularity and provides greater regulatory oversight to ensure that risks are managed appropriately. Regulations under the Act apply to the “brand owner”, who is “the owner of the product name under which the product is supplied”. Additionally, the Act has implications beyond NSW, encompassing the sale of products in NSW that are manufactured outside of the State or sold online.
To give an example, brand owners of battery products could be required to facilitate safe collection points for used products, improve battery design to enhance recyclability, or run campaigns to raise awareness of their risks.
Notably, there are mandatory requirements brand owners must follow.
- Reporting requirements. Before the first supply of a regulated product, the brand owner must give notice of the supply to the regulator or the product stewardship organisation, and provide an annual or quarterly report within three months of the end of the financial year.
- Record keeping requirements. A brand owner or product stewardship organisation must prepare records for each financial year, keep them for at least six years and make them available for inspection by an authorised officer on request.
- Targets. The Minister may set product stewardship targets, including a target expressed as a percentage, included in the regulations or published in the Gazette.
The Act outlines the penalties for failing to comply with the product stewardship requirements. Non-compliance with a safety requirement carries a maximum penalty of $220,000 for individuals and $880,000 for corporations. Other breaches, such as failing to comply with reporting requirements, record keeping requirements, or specified targets could cost individuals up to $110,000 and corporations $440,000.
In the making of a regulation, the Minister must take reasonable steps to seek and consider submissions from the public on the matter, publicising the proposed regulation for at least eight weeks with an explanation of its intended effect. There is a 12-month notice period before the commencement of any such regulation.
The date of commencement for the Act will be decided by the Minister, who will publish an announcement in the Government Gazette shortly before commencement.
Similar laws in Europe
This reform is the first of its kind in Australia. But what about the rest of the world?
In the European Union, the Extended Producer Responsibility framework contained in the Waste Framework Directive, sets out a policy to make producers responsible for their products’ lifecycles, including collection, recycling and disposal. The Battery Regulation, among other things, applies this framework to the battery industry in the EU, taking a full life-cycle approach in which sourcing, manufacturing, use and recycling are addressed and enshrined in a single law.
In Germany this framework has been implemented to create a number of laws.
- The Battery Act (Batteriegesetz) obligates producers and distributers to ensure proper disposal and recycling or batteries. Manufacturers must provide free take-back programs, with non-compliance leading to penalties and sales prohibitions.
- The Electronical and Electronic Equipment Act (Elektro- und Elektronikgerätegesetz) assigns responsibility to manufacturers for the take-back, recycling and disposal of electronic waste. Under these laws, companies must register their products and if they have a sales area which is larger than 400 square metres, they are obligated to take back end-of-life devices and ensure their proper recycling or disposal. Failure to comply can lead to fines and product restrictions.
- The Packaging Act (Verpackungsgesetz) requires manufacturers to register, report and ensure proper recycling of packaging materials. Non-compliance can result in fines of up to €200,000.
Conclusion
Ultimately, this Act provides the robust product stewardship framework needed to regulate products and progress towards a fully circular economy. It holds brand owners accountable for the entire lifecycle of the product they supply, addressing the need for a sustainable approach to end of life management, starting with batteries. It encourages innovation in product design and resource recovery to improve efficiency and minimise environmental impact.
The success of this Act and similar legislation elsewhere will be measured in savings for producers, consumers and the environment.