Reference
EPR Dictionary
Compliance language is often used loosely. These definitions describe how each term is normally used in Slovak and Czech practice, and where the meaning differs between them.
16 of 16 terms
Battery Passport
A digital record carrying defined data about a battery, accessible through a data carrier.
The Battery Passport is an early, concrete application of digital product data requirements in EU law.
Declaration of Conformity (DoC)
Also: DoC
The manufacturer's formal declaration that a product meets the applicable EU legislation.
The DoC is a product-compliance document supported by technical documentation. It is not an EPR document.
Digital Product Passport (DPP)
Also: DPP
A structured digital data record about a product, accessible through a carrier such as a QR code.
The DPP is a product-compliance instrument distinct from EPR, but it relies on much of the same product master data.
Distance seller
A company selling directly to customers in another country without an establishment there, typically online.
Distance sellers are frequently treated as the producer in the destination country and may be required to appoint a local authorised representative.
Selling through a marketplace does not generally remove these obligations.
ESPR
Also: Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation
The EU framework regulation extending ecodesign and product-information requirements across product groups.
Requirements arise per product group through delegated acts, and ESPR provides the legal basis for the Digital Product Passport.
Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR)
Also: EPR
A policy approach that makes producers financially and often operationally responsible for their products at end of life.
Extended producer responsibility shifts the cost and organisation of collection, treatment and recycling from municipalities to the companies that place products on the market.
In practice it becomes a set of national duties: registration, participation in a compliance scheme, record-keeping, periodic reporting and payment of fees.
Non-packaging products
A Slovakia-only EPR category covering defined products made from specified plastics, paper and cardboard, or glass, where the resulting waste forms part of municipal waste.
Typical examples include household and kitchen glassware, mirrors and other glass products; plastic household, kitchen, bathroom and garden products; and paper products such as marketing and POS materials, newspapers, magazines, notebooks and writing pads.
The municipal-waste test is essential. If a producer can demonstrate that the relevant products will not become municipal waste — for example through a documented B2B supply and use route — the relevant quantities may fall outside this regime. B2B status by itself is not an automatic exemption.
The Czech Republic does not have a separate EPR category equivalent to the Slovak non-packaging-products stream. Products supplied to the Czech market must instead be assessed under the Czech rules applicable to their actual product category, packaging and sales model.
Online marketplace
A platform enabling third-party sellers to sell to customers, with its own verification duties towards those sellers.
Marketplace obligations generally sit alongside, not instead of, the seller's own producer obligations.
The exact interaction differs per country and should be confirmed per market.
Packaging waste
Waste arising from sales, grouping and transport packaging placed on a national market.
Packaging obligations cover the packaging around the product, multipack grouping packaging and the transport packaging used to ship goods, including e-commerce shipments.
Placing on the market
The first making available of a product on a specific national market, which is the trigger for producer obligations.
Because the trigger is national, obligations arise per country rather than once for the EU as a whole.
The exact statutory wording differs per legal act and product stream and should be checked for each case.
PPWR
Also: Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation
The EU regulation on packaging and packaging waste, adding directly applicable design and documentation requirements.
PPWR complements national packaging EPR rather than replacing it: registration, scheme participation and reporting continue at national level.
Producer
The legal role held by the company that first places a product on a specific national market.
The producer is the obliged party under EPR. Depending on the sales model it can be a manufacturer, an importer, an own-brand distributor or a foreign distance seller.
The role is national and per product stream: the same company can be the producer for packaging but not for batteries, or a producer in one country but not the other.
Producer Responsibility Organisation (PRO)
Also: PRO, compliance scheme, collective system
An organisation that fulfils take-back, recovery and recycling obligations collectively on behalf of contracted producers.
Most producers meet their operational EPR duties by contracting a PRO and paying fees based on the quantities they place on the market.
The available organisations, their scope and their fee structures are national.
Technical documentation
The evidence file substantiating a product's declared conformity.
It is not published but must be retained and made available to market surveillance authorities on request.
WEEE
Also: Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment
Waste electrical and electronic equipment, and the obligations attached to the EEE placed on the market.
Producers of electrical and electronic equipment register nationally, classify equipment into categories and arrange take-back and treatment of waste equipment.
Equipment containing batteries can trigger obligations in both the EEE and the battery stream.
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