by Rachel Lincoln Sarnoff, Marketing and Communications Director
Nearly 600 stakeholders registered for our recent “Legislators Changing the Game on Packaging EPR” webinar with Colorado State Representative Lisa Cutter, Washington State Senator Mona Das, Maine State Senator Nicole Grohoski, and Maryland State Delegate Sara Love.
Although many questions were addressed during the Q&A, we felt that a few deserved additional follow up. (If you are a PSI Member or Partner and missed the conversation, please click here to view the webinar recording.) Our answers represent PSI’s perspective:
What are the greatest challenges faced by states to implement EPR legislation for packaging – and how can industry stakeholders play a role?
Since the infrastructure for collecting and recycling packaging has evolved over the past 60 years, there is a greater reluctance to change the system. Producers and recyclers are concerned with spending time and money on issues that distract them from their core businesses, and don’t want to lose market share. These businesses need to learn that they can compete the same under EPR as they do under the current system. Other stakeholders, such as environmental groups, are concerned that EPR policies might not meet their expectations for health and environmental protection and see an opportunity to introduce their key interests into EPR bills. State and local governments see great opportunities to save money and reduce their financial and staffing burden but also need to learn that they can still have influence on the recycling system and be confident that it will work better than before.
The greatest challenges to introducing, passing, and implementing packaging any EPR legislation are:
- Lack of understanding of EPR policy across key stakeholder groups – including legislators, but also businesses, NGOs, municipalities, waste management companies, and more.
- Lack of support from diverse stakeholder coalitions – this is critical to passing EPR laws; facilitated processes like PSI’s can be fundamental to ensuring that diverse needs are not only met by the bill, but that all stakeholders are ready to support it.
- Fear of change/reluctance to give up the status quo – there are always some who resist systemic changes like the transition to an EPR system; we believe that robust dialogue is the way forward.
All stakeholders can help by getting involved! If you’re a business, academic institution, environmental nonprofit, or international government leader, you can join PSI as a Partner, engage constructively in bill negotiations, and testify in support of bills before the legislature.
You can also provide information to help support EPR bills. For example, data showing how consumer goods are priced – including all factors from the water and electricity used to make the product to marketing costs to the transportation and fuel required to get it to market – is extremely valuable, as these real costs can then be compared to the costs of EPR fees in order to refute the misleading argument that EPR will raise the cost of consumer goods. This data is especially relevant when it is shared by multinational corporations who have been complying with these laws for over 30 years in Europe and two decades in Canada.
And, of course, companies that manufacture consumer packaged goods or paper products that are covered by EPR programs should commit publicly to reducing their environmental footprint and make good on those commitments.
Do the legislators’ packaging EPR bills and laws require waste prevention?
All of the packaging EPR bills and laws proposed or enacted by our panelists began with robust discussions on waste prevention, as this is the absolute top priority in all states’ sustainable materials management hierarchies.
PSI has monitored this trend in packaging EPR laws and bills – and updated our national policy model accordingly – to include strong incentives for reuse and other waste prevention mechanisms:
- The four packaging EPR laws that were enacted over the past two years all include incentives for reusable packaging formats; three of these laws (in ME, CO, and CA) bake the incentives into the “eco-modulated fee” structure so that producers selling goods in reusable packaging will pay lower fees into the program.
- In Maine, the Department of Environmental Protection will set targets for reuse rates across covered materials through a rulemaking process, which producers will then be required to meet.
- In Oregon, reusable packaging is not covered at all under the program: Producers do not pay fees on reusable packaging until it is disposed of, ideally through recycling. There, producers must also establish a dedicated Waste Prevention and Reuse fund, which will be managed by the state, to provide grants or loans for waste reduction efforts upstream – before recycling or disposal are necessary.
- In California, plastic must be source-reduced by 25% by 2032 – this means that producers must either switch from disposable to reusable/refillable plastics or eliminate unnecessary plastics entirely; this impact will be measured both by weight and by number of items (to prevent lightweighting).
Most packaging EPR bills include similar incentives and requirements for producers to invest in and choose more sustainable packaging – including reducing or eliminating packaging entirely and switching to reusable or refillable formats.
Do you see a future harmonization of laws across states or a federal EPR bill – why or why not?
Through PSI’s experience with EPR in other product areas, we have seen firsthand how national harmonization can streamline and simplify programs. A great example of this is paint where all 11 laws are based on a similar model; a counter-example is electronics, where fragmentation has led to ineffective programs (although we are working to update many of them).
Although PSI has worked with our members and partners to develop a national packaging EPR policy model, which has informed state bills across the country – as well as the federal Break Free From Plastic Pollution Act – we do not yet see full harmonization in this space. The primary drivers for this are lack of industry harmonization – when producers are not on the same page, they cause fragmentation in bill negotiations – and lack of state-to-state recycling harmonization.
Our current recycling system is inconsistent across communities at the local level; as a result, states have wildly divergent on-the-ground realities when it comes to recycling, which changes the types of EPR programs that may be applicable.
For example, Maine is a largely rural state with many small, community-run recycling programs where a municipal reimbursement program made sense, especially with Quebec across the border. California is in a similar situation but on a larger scale – municipalities want to run their programs and receive reimbursement. On the other hand, Colorado has very few municipally-run programs, so a full EPR approach made the most sense for them. As long as discussions continue to occur on a state-by-state basis, EPR programs will continue to be tailored to each state’s unique reality.
But most importantly, the United States lacks a national forum for dialogue on this issue. The field is awash in EPR efforts: Producers, trade groups and associations, and NGOs coalitions all take positions on EPR and engage in legislative efforts, but they are not harmonized, or even coordinated. PSI laid the groundwork for a national forum through our mediated dialogue with governments and the Flexible Packaging Association. But much more is needed: To achieve true harmonization on packaging EPR – especially if the goal is a federal bill – we need everyone to come to the same table.