by Will Grassle, Junior Associate, Policy & Programs

In the last two years, packaging Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) legislation was enacted in four states. So how do they compare? In this summary comparison, we look at similarities and differences in the laws, which will impact new legislation that we expect to be introduced in a significant number of states in the coming year. This is second in a multi-part blog series, which analyzes the four packaging EPR laws.  

We used PSI’s Elements of Effective EPR Legislation to compare the laws in Maine, Oregon, Colorado, and California. Our elements use the following criteria:  

For brevity, our analysis of these four laws did not include the following elements: enforcement and penalties for violation, stewardship plan contents, and annual report contents.  

This blog is part two in our multi-part series. It focuses on covered entities, and collection and convenience standards in each state. For analysis of covered materials and products, please read part one.

MAINE: WHAT ENTITIES ARE COVERED? WHAT IS THE MINIMUM LEVEL OF COLLECTION CONVENIENCE THAT A STEWARDSHIP PLAN MUST PROVIDE TO COVERED ENTITIES?

All entities served by local governments (residential and commercial), including schools and public places, are covered. 

EPR model: Municipal Reimbursement  

Infrastructure: Stewardship organization (SO) may expand collection infrastructure as needed using funds leftover after municipal reimbursements and administrative costs are covered.  

Convenience standards: N/A  

Statewide List: Develop statewide list. Municipalities will have to provide for collection of the full suite of materials identified as “readily recyclable” to participate in program. The process for creating the statewide list will be developed during rulemaking.  

Alternative Collection Programs: Allows for the establishment of “alternative collection program/s” for covered materials, as approved by DEP. Producers may establish their own collection and processing systems for covered materials and do not have to pay fees into the state program for any material collected through their own programs.

OREGON: WHAT ENTITIES ARE COVERED? WHAT IS THE MINIMUM LEVEL OF COLLECTION CONVENIENCE THAT A STEWARDSHIP PLAN MUST PROVIDE TO COVERED ENTITIES?

All entities served by local government provided or overseen (e.g., franchised) service (residential and commercial; on-route and drop-off) are covered, though most collection costs are not covered by the PRO. Producers provide collection for additional materials that are designated in the rule.  

EPR model: Shared responsibility with municipal reimbursement.  

Convenience standards: OR DEQ to establish through rulemaking for producer-collected materials.  

Statewide Lists: EQC to develop two lists in consultation with PROs and Advisory Council: a “uniform statewide collection list” of materials that local governments must collect and “specifically identified materials” that PROs must collect.  

Alternative Collection Programs: Not applicable, although PROs have some latitude in how they collect materials on their list.   

COLORADO: WHAT ENTITIES ARE COVERED? WHAT IS THE MINIMUM LEVEL OF COLLECTION CONVENIENCE THAT A STEWARDSHIP PLAN MUST PROVIDE TO COVERED ENTITIES?

For the first five years, only residential (single and multi-family) are covered; future plans expand to public places, small businesses, schools, hospitality locations, state and local government buildings. 

EPR model: Full EPR  

Convenience standards: Collection of recyclables must be as convenient as collection of trash.   

Statewide List: PRO and Advisory Board develop statewide list of readily recyclable covered materials based on needs assessment; CDPHE reviews & approves. Updated annually.  

Alternative Collection Programs: Producers may submit individual program plans beginning in 2025 and must notify CDPHE of intent one year in advance.   

CALIFORNIA: WHAT ENTITIES ARE COVERED? WHAT IS THE MINIMUM LEVEL OF COLLECTION CONVENIENCE THAT A STEWARDSHIP PLAN MUST PROVIDE TO COVERED ENTITIES? 

All entities served by local governments (residential and commercial are covered.   

EPR model: Shared responsibility with municipal reimbursement.  

Convenience standards: Not applicable.  

Statewide Lists: CalRecycle to publish lists of covered material categories that are recyclable and compostable as of Jan 1, 2024. Updated every two years.   

All municipalities must collect all recyclable covered materials (from statewide list).  

Alternative Collection Programs: For covered materials not collected through a curbside program, PRO shall collect and recycle these materials.   

COMMON EXEMPTIONS IN ALL OR MOST LEGISLATION  

PROs must expand collection infrastructure as needed based on results of the statewide needs assessment and any relevant rulemaking – see distinct language in Maine.    

by Will Grassle, Junior Associate, Policy & Programs

In the last two years, packaging Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) legislation was enacted in four states. So how do they compare? In this summary comparison, we look at similarities and differences in the laws, which will impact new legislation that we expect to be introduced in a significant number of states in the coming year. This is first in a multi-part blog series, which will analyze the four packaging EPR laws.

We used PSI’s Elements of Effective EPR Legislation to compare the laws in Maine, Oregon, Colorado, and California. They include: 

For brevity, our analysis of these four laws did not include the following elements: enforcement and penalties for violation, stewardship plan contents, and annual report contents. This is part one in a multi-part series, which focuses on covered materials and products in each state. 

WHAT’S COVERED IN MAINE? 

Packaging:  

Unique Exemptions:  

WHAT’S COVERED IN OREGON? 

Packaging:  

Packaging-like products:  

Paper products:  

Unique exemptions:  

WHAT’S COVERED IN COLORADO? 

Packaging:  

No packaging-like products 

Paper products:  

Unique exemptions: 

WHAT’S COVERED IN CALIFORNIA? 

Packaging:  

Reusables:  

Packaging-like products:  

No paper products 

Unique exemptions:  

COMMON EXEMPTIONS IN ALL OR MOST LEGISLATION 

by Scott Cassel, CEO and Founder of PSI

As of last year, more than 40 companies are working to develop or manage “chemical recycling” projects in the United States. This month, ExxonMobil announced 13 projects in the pipeline with the capacity to recycle 1.1 billion pounds of plastic by 2026. And as many as 20 states have enacted laws that allow chemical recycling plants to be permitted as manufacturing facilities. Yet government policy makers tasked with passing legislation or issuing permits for chemical recycling projects lack criteria to assess their economic, environmental, and human health impacts.  

Our new report, “Making Sense of Chemical Recycling,” aims to fill that gap. The report will publish on November 17th, the same day that we will host an EPR Masterclass: Chemical Recycling presented by the Extended Producer Responsibility Alliance (EXPRA). The free webinar will feature a multi-stakeholder panel of experts from the United States and Europe, who will discuss which, if any, of these technologies can support a sustainable economy, prevent waste and pollution, and curb greenhouse gas emissions.  

PSI works with state, local, and tribal government Members in 40 states; to write the report, we called on our Members to help draft a set of criteria through which governments might assess chemical recycling technology permits and legislation. The report also includes an overview of the types of technologies currently considered under the chemical recycling umbrella. 

We recognize that this conversation is controversial. Producers claim that these projects leapfrog mechanical recycling by enabling infinite processing, while environmental groups allege that they undermine efforts to reduce plastic through upstream design and are simply another form of greenwashing. In July 2022, U.S. Senator Cory Booker of New Jersey, along with U.S. Representatives Jared Huffman and Alan Lowenthal of California, published a letter to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) requesting that pyrolysis and gasification continue to be regulated as “municipal waste combustion units” rather than as a manufacturing plant under less stringent regulations. The letter was signed by 35 other members of Congress and endorsed by over 45 environmental organizations.   

Critics of chemical recycling point out that projects are typically situated in low-income communities of color and that they do not yet operate “at scale,” i.e., at the required size to solve the problem. However, many acknowledge that waste management facilities, including mechanical recycling plants, are also typically situated in low-income communities of color and are also not operating at a scale to solve the problem: In the United States, only about 30% of the nearly 300 million tons of municipal solid waste generated each year is mechanically recycled. While the best way to address this crisis – as well as the linked climate emergency – is to eliminate the overproduction of plastics by ramping up waste prevention systems such as reuse and refill, we must acknowledge that production might not stop in the near- or mid-term. Strong recycling and waste management policies are also necessary to achieve a sustainable circular economy.  

In the four existing packaging EPR laws, the point is already decided: PSI’s model legislation for packaging EPR, which informed laws enacted in California, Colorado, Maine, and Oregon, specifies that incineration and “waste to fuel” or “waste to energy” technologies, which burn material for energy, should be considered disposal. 

Since 2000, PSI has helped enact 130 EPR laws across 16 product categories in 33 states — and all of them began with a background paper, which established the foundation for dialogue. As such, the purpose of “Making Sense of Chemical Recycling” report is to provide baseline information for a robust multi-stakeholder dialogue that we hope to facilitate with governments, NGOs, and companies running or planning chemical recycling facilities. It is a first step in a desperately needed dialogue where all stakeholders can present their interests and perspectives. Only then can PSI develop specific recommendations for how EPR can be applied to emerging chemical recycling technologies. 

by Rachel Lincoln Sarnoff, Marketing and Communications Director

Have you checked our EPR Laws Map lately? California just changed color! This month, Governor Gavin Newsom signed into law battery EPR legislation, championed by the California Product Stewardship Council and Californians Against Waste, that includes strong collection convenience standards and performance goals, comprehensive education and outreach requirements, and aspects that seek to advance equity. The state now has 11 EPR laws in place – a national record.   

Known as the Responsible Battery Recycling Act of 2022, AB 2440 requires producers to establish, fund, and operate a stewardship program to collect and recycle covered batteries and battery-containing products, including primary, rechargeable, and lithium-ion batteries, which can explode or cause fires. 

Over a decade ago, PSI began hosting meetings with state and local governments and other key stakeholders from across the United States to develop an evolved model for EPR batteries legislation based on global best practices. These ongoing discussions and the updated model helped shape legislation introduced in multiple states, which led to Vermont’s first-in-the-country single-use household battery EPR law (2014) and the District of Columbia’s first-in-the-nation single-use and rechargeable battery law that also covers battery-containing products (2021).  

Newsom also signed SB 1215, the AB 2240 companion bill, which was stripped of its EPR elements but still amends California’s existing electronics recycling law to include batteries that are “embedded” in products and not designed to be easily removed. 

by Scott Cassel, CEO and Founder 

The Product Stewardship Institute was the only nonprofit focused on Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) to join a stakeholder consultation meeting organized by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) in Washington D.C. PSI was invited to the meeting, which also included national nonprofits Ocean Conservancy and Surfrider, among others, at the request of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and was recommended by OECD, which works closely with PSI and had previously invited the organization to present on U.S EPR activity at an OECD event in Tokyo.  

With 38 member countries, the OECD works to establish international standards to help solve social, environmental, and economic problems. The focus of the September meeting, which included environmental nonprofits and waste management experts, was to assess the performance of the United States in regards to the environmental — and, especially, environmental justice — impacts of “marine litter.” (Also known as “marine debris,” this refers to waste discharged into a coastal or marine environment; the majority is plastic.)

Participants assessed national and international commitments and contributed recommendations for improvement. Scott Cassel, PSI’s CEO and Founder, presented on how state packaging EPR laws will reduce plastic pollution, especially when considered with other legislative measures such as single-use plastic bans, post-recycled content (PCR) mandates, and enhanced deposit return systems. Over the past two years, packaging EPR laws influenced by PSI’s model EPR legislation were enacted in Maine, Oregon, Colorado, and California; in 2023, nine state bills are expected to be introduced (or re-introduced). 

Cassel pointed out that the nation’s fragmented recycling infrastructure and policies, lack of a consistent materials management policy, and depleted technical capabilities are challenges to the implementation of statewide packaging EPR policies. He noted that although waste management is delegated to the states, there is a critical need for greater state harmonization or a national solution that could be found in the federal Break Free From Plastic Act, which may be re-introduced in 2023 (PSI’s model also informed that bill’s EPR component).  

Although it is unclear what authority the United States EPA has to promote policy that is not directly delegated by Congress, Cassel highlighted that it does have the ability to provide guidance and technical support on issues such as packaging labeling; a standard definition of recycling; and goals for source reduction, reuse, recycling, and post-consumer recycled content. He also asked EPA to support national efforts driven by state and local governments.  

PSI’s own experience bears this out: Beginning in 2003, the organization worked with the EPA to facilitate a multi-stakeholder dialogue — which included industry, government, and recycled paint manufacturers — and develop a legislative model for paint EPR. In 2009, Oregon used the PSI model to enact the country’s first EPR law; since then, PSI has helped enact paint EPR laws built on the same model in 10 states and the district of Columbia. Paint EPR programs have collected more than 51 gallons of paint, recycled over 72% of all latex paint collected, saved governments and taxpayers nearly $300 million, and established more than 2,000 collection sites, over 70% of which are at voluntary retail locations.  

Cassel recommended that the EPA replicate this model and help solve the marine litter problem through a national packaging EPR strategy. The OECD report generated from the meeting will be discussed at a joint meeting of the OECD Working Party on Environmental Performance (WPEP) in 2023. 

Written by the team at Covanta, a PSI Partner, this blog examines a concept foundational to EPR: The transition from a “linear” to a “circular” economy. Covanta recently published an article to help businesses move up the waste hierarchy.

In a linear economy, raw materials are turned into products that are then sold to consumers who hold the responsibility for disposal. And then the process repeats. This is sometimes called the “Take-Make-Waste” model. Take materials from the ground. Make products from them. And then eventually, products are discarded. 

The problem with a linear economy, according to the World Wildlife Fund’s position paper is that it is unsustainable: 50% of all greenhouse gas emissions worldwide are caused by the extraction of raw materials. 

In contrast, according to the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, a circular economy is based on the elimination of waste and pollution, the circulation of products and materials, and the regeneration of nature: “It is underpinned by a transition to renewable energy and materials. A circular economy decouples economic activity from the consumption of finite resources. It is a resilient system that is good for business, people and the environment.” 

So, how exactly does EPR fit into that definition? 

The Elimination of Waste and Pollution 

The primary concern of EPR is to help eliminate, or at the very least curb, waste and pollution. Much of today’s waste comes in the form of packaging designed with the single objective of getting a product into consumers’ hands. Instead, companies must seek out alternative approaches when designing the product packaging that solve for form and function, and potential reuse, as well. EPR is meant to incentivize such a shift. 

The Circulation of Products and Materials 

Utilizing products and their materials to their fullest at every lifecycle stage is the essence of the circular economy concept. A key aim of EPR is to extend the natural life of products and even create new avenues of value through intelligent design, allowing them to be repurposed, their salvageable parts to be resold, or their components to be recycled into new products or, as a very last resort, processed into recoverable energy. 

The Regeneration of Nature 

The ultimate goal of a circular economy is improving our natural environment and society’s relationship with it. The key to this pillar of a circular economy is a change in perspective. Instead of looking to do less damage to the environment, society should be seeking to actively improve the environment and prosper alongside it. 

As it relates to EPR, this means designing products to be synergistic with the environment instead of simply “inoffensive” to it, so that when they do reenter ecosystems, they go beyond reducing pollution or conserving resources to reinvigorating natural cycles. A good example of what this may look like is designing fertilizers and pesticides to be less synthetic, but to also renew soil nutrients that will in turn help the carbon cycle and climate. 

The Current State of EPR 

EPR is a complex solution to a complex problem. In an effort to make the seemingly challenging shift toward its policies more appealing for companies, a number of European countries have employed programs in which the state provides incentives for businesses to proactively alter their production models. Germany, who embraced the strategy in 1991, saw packaging decrease by more than 13% in the first seven years. In 2009, Canada launched a nationwide EPR plan called the Canada-wide Action Plan for Extended Producer Responsibility (CAP-EPR) which has been enforced by nine of Canada’s 10 provinces. In the United States, California just enacted its 11th EPR law — for electronics. The European Union has set an ambitious target for deploying EPR. By 2024, all packaging in EU countries must be recyclable with a goal of, by 2030, having 75% of all packaging waste recycled. 

Meeting EPR Head-On 

Responding to EPR requires businesses to examine their entire manufacturing and marketing processes and identify practical ways in which they can re-tool to fit into a more circular economy—especially as public opinion and legislation bear down on them more aggressively. They must examine the whole of their production cycle to identify and act on ways to mitigate potential liabilities; capitalize on Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) goals and shift toward systems—and ways of thinking—that prioritize strategic resource use, intelligent product design and responsible operational execution. 

To see how stronger recycling efforts can help companies overcome the challenges of EPR, download Covanta’s recent article.

by Brendan Adamcyzk, Associate for Policy & Programs

PSI is a founding member of the International Paint Recycling Association, known as IPRA, and we’re proud of the impact numbers in their recent 2021 Annual Report. Three years ago, we developed the group in collaboration with recycled paint manufacturers and it is amazing to see how much it has accomplished in just two short years.

In 2021, IPRA members recycled or reused over 4.7 million gallons of paint, achieved a 71.4% paint-to-paint recycling rate, and supported more than 3,200 jobs in the recycling industry!

IPRA is the only organization dedicated to the recycled paint industry and works tirelessly to promote the essential role of recycled paint manufacturers in the circular economy. Nine North American recycled paint manufacturers make up the group — representing decades of experience in recycling post-consumer paint into high-quality paint and other recycled products.

Many industries were affected by the COVID-19 pandemic and its impact on supply chains — and the recycled paint industry was no exception. Despite these challenges, member companies have actually expanded North American operations over the past few years, while also devoting time to testify in support of paint stewardship legislation in Maryland, Massachusetts, Missouri, and New Jersey.

In May, the latest paint stewardship program launched in New York, and IPRA joined forces with the paint industry’s American Coatings Association and the industry nonprofit PaintCare to promote the new program. According to Josh Wiwcharyk, President of IPRA and Loop Recycled Products, “IPRA remains proudly committed to advocating for increased recycling of paint and extended producer responsibility initiatives to ensure responsible end-of-life management for leftover paint.”

by Scott Cassel, CEO and Founder 

We’re thrilled to announce our partnership with LANDBELL GROUP, which delivers chemical stewardship and risk assessment services in the United States and Canada through its consultancy, H2 Compliance. Established as a packaging compliance scheme in Germany in 1995, LANDBELL GROUP has since evolved into a global platform for EPR and regulatory compliance and is now a leading provider of environmental and chemical compliance solutions with local expertise and global presence. With its comprehensive core services – compliance, consulting and software – LANDBELL GROUP helps companies meet their EPR obligations worldwide. The company’s PROs have collected and treated more than 10 million tonnes of waste batteries, electronics, and packaging.

LANDBELL GROUP is a recognised expert for waste portable battery compliance and takeback, having collected and treated over 100,000 tonnes of waste portable batteries; with an established reverse supply chain in over 40 countries, LANDBELL GROUP also has more than 10 years’ experience managing international takeback activities for lithium batteries. The company will present our forthcoming “Powering Up for Battery EPR” webinar, with panelist Martin Tobin, CEO of European Recycling Platform (ERP) in Ireland. ERP, a LANDBELL GROUP company, is the only multi-national organisation operating producer responsibility organisations (PROs) for batteries, packaging and WEEE in 16 countries for over 38,000 companies, and Martin is a key member of LANDBELL GROUP’s global leadership team. ERP is actively involved in the proposed revision of the European Union’s Battery Directive, contributing its experience and expertise to the ongoing discussions.

Recently, LANDBELL GROUP began a takeback program in the USA and Canada for ICT equipment; it also delivers environmental compliance services, such as registration and reporting, to ensure producers meet their extended producer responsibility (EPR) obligations in the relevant US and Canadian states and provinces. With LANDBELL GROUP’s Knowledge Database (KDB), the company offers a web-based regulatory information service, which provides relevant information on EPR globally. The KDB covers more than 180 jurisdictions, including 28 states in the USA, and all Canadian provinces and territories.

In the United States and Canada, H2 Compliance supports North American and pharmaceutical businesses with chemical services, providing technical and strategic support for global chemical control regulations; for example, TSCA and EU REACH, and hazard communication services such as Safety Data Sheets. Last month, the Resource Productivity and Recovery Authority in Ontario, Canada registered H2 Compliance as a producer responsibility organization, which will provide collection, management and administrative services to help producers meet their regulatory obligations under the EEE and Batteries Regulations.

For more information, please visit: www.landbell-group.com

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:   

  1. Lack of understanding of EPR policy across key stakeholder groups – including legislators, but also businesses, NGOs, municipalities, waste management companies, and more.   
  1. 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.  
  1. 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:  

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.  

by Scott Cassel, CEO and Founder 

Yesterday, California became the fourth state in the nation to enact a packaging EPR law, which was signed into law by Governor Gavin Newsom. After more than three years of negotiations and the threat of a ballot initiative taxing plastic pollution, California stakeholders successfully negotiated SB54, the Plastic Pollution Prevention and Packaging Producer Responsibility Act, which was sponsored by Senator Ben Allen. The law covers single-use packaging and food serviceware and includes enforceable recycling targets that will increase over time, reaching 65% by 2032. 

In keeping with PSI’s packaging EPR model legislation, which was drafted in 2018 and informed similar legislation this year in Colorado and last year in Maine and Oregon, California’s law will create a producer responsibility organization (PRO) to manage the program, with government oversight.  

The law also includes specific targets for source reduction, which producers can meet by establishing reuse or refill systems or eliminating single-use packaging and serviceware, and bans expanded polystyrene food serviceware unless it can demonstrate increasingly high recycling rates: from 25% by 2025 to 65% by 2032. It also includes parameters for eco-modulated fees to incentivize the use of more sustainable, recyclable or compostable, renewable, and non-toxic materials.  

On the controversial topic of “chemical recycling,” the law leaves open the possibility for advanced plastics-to-plastics technologies but does not allow combustion, incineration, waste-to-energy, or waste-to-fuel production (except for anaerobic digestion) to count as “recycling.” Under the law, CalRecycle will adopt regulations to verify that packaging intended for export meets processing and contamination standards and can prohibit any technologies that produce “significant amounts of hazardous waste.” 

The law also requires producers to pay $500 million per year for 10 years, beginning in 2027, into a new California Plastic Pollution Mitigation Fund, which will be managed by the state to restore the environment and mitigate past, present, and future environmental justice and public health impacts created by the manufacturing, litter, or disposal of plastic packaging. Like all packaging EPR laws, producers will be required to internalize the costs of the program and will not be permitted to pass their EPR fees on to consumers as a separate item on receipts or invoices.