Now that extended producer responsibility (EPR) has been in place for nearly a decade in some countries, it is a welcome opportunity to review its implementation and assess its utility. Yet, as most analysts and decision makers active in the world of EPR recognize, it remains difficult to know the details of EPR programs, obtain data about the results of those programs and especially to compare results across programs. In many respects, this no different from other programs in the realm of integrated product policy (IPP) or waste management—or even environmental and public policy more generally. Assessment of IPP and waste management is bedevilled by problems of conflicting definitions, incommensurate boundaries and goals and data availability. Assessment of EPR is made more difficult to the extent that, by design, many aspects of it are in the hands of the private sector, making data even less accessible. Nonetheless, the task of evaluation is, in part, informed by generic principles of good policy analysis. To be assessed effectively, EPR, like any other public policy, needs such familiar elements as effective monitoring and clarity of objectives. Further, the assessment needs to strike a balance between comprehensiveness and the cost and complexity of analysis. In light of the multi-dimensional nature of EPR— both in its design and programmatic objectives and in the multiplicity of environmental endpoints that motivate it more generally—that balance has not yet swung far enough in the direction of comprehensiveness.