Practical guide to Chile's EPR Law for companies

The question that settles everything else is whether your company is a producer under Law 20,920. The answer comes from three chained questions: do you sell or import something that falls into one of the six priority products? are you the one who places it on the Chilean market for the first time? is there already a target decree in force for that product? If all three are yes, you have obligations that are enforceable today.

The costliest misunderstanding happens with packaging, where many companies believe the obligation falls on whoever manufactures the packaging. It does not: it falls on whoever places the packaged or wrapped consumer good on the market. If you sell anything packaged, this applies to you.

Step 1. The three-filter test

Filter 1: is it a priority product?

The law lists six: lubricating oils, electrical and electronic equipment, batteries, packaging and wrapping, tyres, and cells and portable batteries. For packaging, the target decree narrows this further to packaging made from at least one of five materials: liquid cartonboard, metal, paper and cardboard, plastic and glass. Packaging of other materials falls into a residual subcategory called “other”.

Filter 2: are you the producer?

Regardless of the sales technique, a producer is anyone who:

• Sells the priority product for the first time on the domestic market.
• Sells it under their own brand, having bought it from a third party that is not the first distributor.
• Imports it for their own professional use.

Practical consequences: an importer of packaged goods is a producer. A brand that outsources manufacturing and sells under its own name is a producer. A distributor reselling a product already placed on the market by someone else is not.

Filter 3: is there a target decree in force?

Until your product's targets come into force, the obligation is limited to declaring annually to the RETC the quantities placed on the market. It is not optional, and it is the trail by which the authority identifies you when the decree arrives.

Step 2. Check whether the 300 kilogram threshold saves you

Packaging has a way out for very small players: producers who place less than 300 kilograms of packaging on the market a year are not required to meet collection and recovery targets or associated obligations.

Watch two caveats:

• Those producers must still submit annual information through the RETC on quantities sold, collection and recovery activities and their costs. The exemption covers targets, not reporting.
• That reporting duty does not apply to those qualifying as micro-enterprises under Law 20,416.

Working out whether you cross 300 kilograms means weighing packaging, not products. It is an exercise almost nobody has done, and it requires crossing the product master file with packaging weight per unit and units sold during the year.

Step 3. If you are a producer subject to targets, this is what you owe

1. Register as a producer in the Pollutant Release and Transfer Register, through the RETC Single Window.
2. Set up or join a management system, individual or collective, that organises and finances the collection, storage, transport and treatment of the waste across the whole country.
3. Meet the collection and recovery targets and the associated obligations of your decree.
4. Ensure that management is carried out by waste managers authorised and registered in the RETC.
5. Declare annually the quantities placed on the market.

One deadline gets overlooked: for packaging, producers subject to targets have four months from the first placement on the domestic market of a packaged or wrapped good to comply with these obligations. If your company has just started selling in Chile, the clock starts with the first sale.

Step 4. Choose a management system on the merits

The decision is not only economic. The packaging decree distinguishes by system size:

• Individual systems and collective systems with fewer than 20 unrelated producers can only meet their targets with the waste arising from packaging placed on the market by their own members.
• GRANSIC, or Large Household Collective Systems, made up of 20 or more unrelated producers, can meet their targets with any packaging waste. In exchange they take on additional obligations to install and operate reception and storage facilities in municipalities above a given population, and to carry out household separate collection with growing coverage of dwellings.

Management plans must be submitted to the Ministry of the Environment, through the RETC, before 30 June of the year preceding the one in which the system will start operating.

The fee and ecodesign

Producers finance the collective system in proportion to the packaging they place on the market. That fee must be modulated using ecodesign criteria, with surcharges and discounts. In other words, redesigning packaging to be more recyclable or to include recycled content has a direct effect on what you pay. If your company handles many product references, ecodesign applied to packaging stops being a marketing initiative and becomes a cost lever.

Step 5. Understand the targets you are playing against

The packaging decree sets rising targets by category and material, on a progressive annual scale. These are the final targets of the schedule:

Liquid cartonboard and glass packaging are always treated as household packaging. Non-household packaging can only belong to the metal, paper and cardboard, and plastic subcategories. Household targets are reached over a longer schedule than non-household ones. Check the decree for the exact figure for the current year, because each year has its own percentage.

Two accreditation rules worth knowing:

• Recovery targets can only be met through material recycling. The exception is packaging for hazardous substances and agro-industrial packaging, which can undergo any recovery operation.
• Only waste collected within the country counts. Exported packaging waste is treated as recovered at the moment of export, by whoever sold it abroad.

Step 6. If you generate packaging waste, look at the other side too

Besides being a producer you may be an industrial consumer: an industrial establishment that generates non-household packaging waste. In that case you must choose between two routes:

1. Hand it to a management system, under the conditions that system sets.
2. Recover it yourself or through authorised and registered waste managers, reporting to the Ministry. Here you choose again between reporting directly to the Ministry, in which case the recovered tonnes are allocated proportionally across all collective systems, or signing an agreement with a management system so it reports on your behalf, in which case the tonnes are credited to that system.

The choice matters: if you have a meaningful flow of clean, separated packaging waste, an agreement with a management system can carry negotiating value.

Common mistakes

• Assuming the obligation belongs to the packaging manufacturer. It belongs to whoever places the packaged good on the market.
• Not weighing the packaging. Without packaging weight per product reference you cannot tell whether you cross 300 kilograms or calculate the fee. It is the data point that takes longest to appear.
• Confusing target exemption with reporting exemption. Below 300 kilograms the duty to report remains, except for micro-enterprises.
• Forgetting reusable packaging. It is not treated as placed on the market for target purposes, but you have to be able to prove that it is reusable.
• Hiring unregistered waste managers. The manager must be authorised and registered in the RETC, in the relevant sectoral system. If not, their tonnes do not count for you.
• Ignoring the four-month deadline from first placement on the market.

Penalties

Enforcement sits with the Superintendency of the Environment. Penalties range from written warnings to fines of up to ten thousand annual tax units for very serious infringements, five thousand for serious ones and one thousand for minor ones.

Frequently asked questions

Am I a producer if I only import for my own use?

Yes, when you import a priority product for your own professional use. That is one of the three legal definitions of a producer.

How is the 300 kilogram threshold counted?

By the weight of the packaging placed on the market during the year, not by the weight or value of the packaged product.

What about packaging made of several materials?

It is deemed to belong to a subcategory if at least 85% of its mass corresponds to that material. If no material reaches that share, it belongs to two or more subcategories in proportion to its composition.

When is the RETC declaration made?

The period is announced each year by the Ministry of the Environment. For the 2026 declaration, covering priority products placed on the market during 2025, the Ministry stated it would run during the fourth quarter of 2026. Always check the current date on the portal.

Can I meet my targets using other companies' packaging waste?

Only if you belong to a GRANSIC. Individual systems and collective systems with fewer than 20 unrelated producers can only claim waste from packaging placed on the market by their own members.

All of this rests on two data points almost nobody has in order: kilos of packaging per product reference, and tonnes managed with traceability down to the waste manager. Our waste management solution is built to keep those two numbers alive all year, not just in the week of the declaration.