As the Scottish Government seeks to fulfil its progressive objectives as set out by the Zero Waste Plan, there is scope to consider how producer responsibility policies may more effectively influence and improve the management of waste and resources. Scotland’s Zero Waste plan suggests, amongst other intentions, the following broad strategic direction: “Introduce policy levers that systematically drive the transition to a zero waste society across all resource streams.” This gives cause to look again at producer responsibility policies to identify measures that may be undertaken to help achieve the goals within the Plan. Such improvement of the policy framework holds promise to create a more balanced, effective and positive environmental and economic landscape for the country. The way in which this may be achieved is addressed specifically by this report for packaging, waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE) and end of life vehicles (ELVs). The work has included a broad review of packaging, WEEE and ELV producer responsibility policies operating within the UK and abroad to give a general background to what approaches are used, and how effective they are. This is complemented by in depth analysis of the available UK and Scotland specific data on packaging, WEEE and ELVs to gain a deeper insight into the current policies, and what challenges remain ahead. Targeted stakeholder consultation was undertaken to obtain views from industry and the regulators in relation to the current policies, and to explore potential alternatives. This informed the development of a range of new policy proposals (or refinements on existing approaches). These proposed changes were reviewed in a two stage process, first, to highlight the most promising options, and second, to show, where possible, the costs and benefits of the approaches. If Scotland were to pursue alternative and separate producer responsibility schemes, then (if other parts of the UK do not follow suit) there is certain to be implications for business, consumers, local authorities, regulators, the environment itself and other stakeholders alike. Some approaches are evaluated to have greater and lesser benefits than others. The presentation of this evidence intends to help support the government in its onward discussions to judge the case for policy change. The principles identified through the course of this work for the core materials studied may also have some relevance to other products. Although detailed study and appraisal is not conducted for other materials (for instance batteries, cooking oil, tyres, textiles etc.), we have included, as an appendix, a brief literature review of international approaches addressing other materials. This suggests how the concept of producer responsibility could be applied more widely.