An environmental policy approach in which a producer’s responsibility for a product is extended to the post-consumer stage of a product’s life cycle. It has two related features:

1. the shifting of responsibility, physically and/or economically (fully or partially), upstream toward the producer and away from municipalities for the treatment or disposal of post-consumer products; and
2. providing incentives to producers to incorporate environmental considerations in the design of their products.

Another good link

Extended Producer Responsibility for Packaging - UPSTREAM