The commentary and discussions across social media and the web have been intense, with a lot of very emotionally-charged reactions from varying vantage points. The Or Foundation unveiled their agreement with SHEIN to receive $15 million over three years, as the first grant recipient of SHEIN’s new Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) Fund to help manage textile waste. The Or Foundation x Shein Agreement To Create EPR Fund There were shockwaves sent across the fashion industry, after an announcement at the Global Fashion Summit this year (2022). This is only a very brief overview – but it gives you a little context on EPR before we get deeper into it. So, the tax is supposed to go to waste management, but when a great deal of that textile waste ends up being exported to countries in Africa as a part of that so-called “waste management”, AND those tax funds stay within France or Europe, these policies are only continuing to perpetuate a long history of waste colonialism. However – France and the EU’s policies fail to compensate the communities where the majority of that waste ends up. The EU also recently announced EPR schemes to help address textile waste from fast fashion. In 2007, France was the first country to declare a legal framework for managing textile waste through EPR policy with the goal of holding textile producers responsible for the collection and recycling of end-of-use clothing, linen, and shoes. Basically, it puts the financial burden of the waste management on the actual brands to deal with their products after citizens are done with them. EPR policy would ideally ensure that producers are required to assume the costs of collection, treating, and recycling of their end-of-life products. That thing is – Extended Producer Responsibility or EPR. And it’s probably something you’ve heard about - maybe something you’ve even heard a lot about recently. “What’s so unfair about what fast fashion has done is that it’s created a situation where every single garment that’s created, whether it was from me or from Sammy or if it’s upcycled or recycled - it’s still waste until proven otherwise, because we just have so much excess in circulation right now, and it’s just very unfair to anyone who’s trying to do the right thing.” -Liz Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) Before we get into it, there’s one thing I want to contextualize. A nonprofit based in the USA and Ghana, The Or Foundation’s primary goal is to catalyze what they call a justice-led circular economy. In episode 275, Kestrel welcomes Liz Ricketts (the cofounder and Director of The Or Foundation), alongside Sammy Oteng (a fashion designer, researcher, and the Community Design Lab Manager at The Or Foundation), to the show.