Obligation radar

What it answers

Not "what does a tonne cost" but "which markets oblige me, and did anybody notice?". Producers rarely fail EPR by miscalculating a tonnage. They fail by selling into a market for eighteen months without knowing that market required registration before the first shipment.

Where the answer comes from

Your own order book. The radar reads completed outgoing stock moves over the window (twelve months by default) and groups them by the delivery address's country and state. Nothing is typed in; nothing is maintained by hand.

A market with under one unit shipped in the window is ignored as noise.

How each market is judged

1. Is there a regime? Jurisdictions marked in force or coming into force for that country - and for the US and Canada, only where the shipment went to that specific state or province.
2. Are you over the threshold? Where the regime publishes a tonnage floor, your shipped packaging weight is compared against the lowest one. The UK's floor is 25 tonnes; a few hundred bottles is not a compliance failure, and calling it one trains people to ignore the radar.
3. Are you registered? Checked against your Registrations.

Reading the verdicts

Needs action - shipping with no registration, a registration that was started and never finished, or one that has lapsed while you carry on trading.

Worth watching - shipping but apparently under the threshold. Worth confirming, because thresholds count turnover as well as tonnage and the app only sees tonnage.

Covered - registered. Keep the declarations filed.

What it cannot see

• Turnover thresholds. The UK's small-producer test is turnover over GBP 1m and 25 tonnes. The app tests the tonnage; you know the turnover.
• Who the producer legally is. Selling through a marketplace, or under someone else's brand, can move the obligation. The app assumes the company shipping the goods is the producer.
• Non-packaging streams. Electricals, batteries and textiles have their own registers. The jurisdiction records carry a waste stream field ready for them, but only packaging is seeded today.

How often to run it

Quarterly, and whenever you open a new market. The dashboard shows how long ago it last ran.