Uruguay has pioneered the EPR regulations for Latin America, first for lead batteries in 2003, then for general packaging in 2004, agrochemical containers in 2013 and tires in 2015. Since 2016 a General Waste Law has been in discussion and is (August 2019) about to be passed in the Congress. However, this new law which intends to derogate the general packaging law seems to be a new Packaging Law which derogates EPR fundamentals to instead a green tax. The green tax grants the government the power to regulate, implement, and control new plans, perhaps a bit too much for any single actor. While most countries (even in our region) chose EPR as the scheme to achieve a sound management of some specific waste streams, Uruguay picked the green tax for general packaging management. Hopefully the Uruguayan government will be wise enough to achieve material recovering goals in an efficient way, at least as efficient as a sound EPR based system should be. But can we base our waste management logics just in hope?