New EPR laws for packaging: should producers pay for recycling?

Steven Depolo via mywaste

The concept of extended producer responsibility (EPR) shifts the some of the financial burden of waste management from local governments to producers. Only recently have EPR laws dealt specifically with packaging. Today, single-use disposable products are everywhere, and mostly made of plastic.

Unfortunately, our waste-management laws were written before anyone gave much thought to either single-use disposables or recycling. Municipalities now have the primary responsibility for waste management. And no one has a system that adequately handles the tsunami of disposable plastic we generate and toss.

Right now, 20,000 different cities and counties, all with different rules, govern recycling. It confuses a lot of people. Perhaps the town where you live accepts different items than the town where you work or where family members live.

Before 2018, American recycling programs exported most of their output to China. It had such a high contamination rate that China had to send a lot of it to its own landfills. After years of warnings, China slammed the door on imported recycling, not only from the US but the whole world.

The need for new recycling laws

Wikimedia Commons

When China first decided that it wanted to import recycling, it made it hard for other countries to support their own recycling companies. Now, with China closed, it will take years before domestic companies have enough capacity to handle the sheer volume of recyclables.

For years, municipalities could collect recycling and sell it to a materials recovery facility, or MRF. Now, MRFs charge a tipping fee to accept recycling. Although the general public demands recycling, too many towns find they can no longer afford to operate their recycling programs. With current recycling laws, they have either had to abandon the effort or increase taxes to pay for it.

People complain about the confusion all the time, but we don’t stop to consider that industry also finds it frustrating.

More and more companies want to use recycled materials, but under current rules, it is more profitable to make packaging from virgin plastic than from recycled plastic. What’s more, the supply of recycled plastic is inadequate both in how much is available and how good it is. American companies face the same contamination problem that caused China to stop importing recycling.

Like consumers, companies want clear and consistent rules and procedures. They also need access to high-quality used plastic and a financial structure that makes it cost-effective to use more of it. EPR laws aim to create a system to improve the whole recycling system for everyone.

And now, a new concept, the circular economy, is gaining traction. It basically means designing products so that the component parts can be reused to make more of the same kind of product. The concept reduces the need for mining new commodities.

State EPR laws for packaging

Several states have tried and failed to enact EPR laws for packaging. At the start of 2021, nearly a dozen states were actively considering them: California, Colorado, Hawaii, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, Oregon, Vermont, and Washington.

Law makers from nine of them have formed the EPR for Packaging Network to coordinate advocacy campaigns. Such cooperation can help avoid replacing the patchwork of local laws with a patchwork of state laws. It will not result in identical state laws, but it will help guide them with a coordinated set of general principles.

Maine

Mountain of plastic trash. plastic packaging

Mountain of plastic trash / Shafiu Hussein via Flickr

Maine became the first state to pass an EPR law for packaging. Governor Janet Mills signed it on July 12, 2021. It requires companies that produce packaging to pay into a fund that reimburses municipalities for recycling expenses.

Besides producing a revenue stream for local governments, supporters of the law hope to create an incentive for companies to produce less packaging and to make packaging more recyclable.

Although the law has passed, the state has to establish rules before it can go into effect. It must determine exactly what producers have to pay for, among other details.

Not everyone is happy.

Maine’s grocers, among other large sellers of plastic goods, warn of the extra administrative work the law imposes on them. They will have to pass the costs to consumers in the form of higher prices.

Fortunately, states that pass EPR laws don’t need to fear opposition from large multinational corporations. Coca Cola, Eastman, Nestlé, Unilever, and Walmart are among 150 companies that have publicly recognized the necessity of EPR and pledged to support it.

Oregon

An Oregon law, signed by Governor Kate Brown on August 6, 2021, became the second EPR law enacted for packaging. Unlike Maine’s law, Oregon’s doesn’t require producers to cover the cost of collection. That remains with local governments. Producers’ fees will fund upgrades to MRFs among other things.

The law also requires uniform standards in collection. It eliminates the crazy quilt of different policies on what to accept from town to town. It also expands recycling access to rural areas and multi-family housing, which have lacked it until now.

This law specifically covers packaging. Oregon already had EPR laws for beverage containers, paint, electronics, and pharmaceuticals.

A proposed federal EPR law

A Democratic senator (Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island) and a Republican representative (Tom Suozzi of New York) have introduced the REDUCE Act. It would fund improvements to America’s waste management infrastructure by establishing a fee for producing virgin plastic.

Only the largest petrochemical companies would pay the fee. The bill provides an exception for manufacture of medical products and others for which recycled plastic is unsuitable.

In this time of partisan discord, it’s heartening that a Democrat and a Republican worked together to devise the REDUCE Act. Now, they need to persuade their colleagues to support the concept—and the leadership to shepherd it to the floor or at least stay out of the way.

Will EPR laws for packaging work?

plastic on a river bank -- plastic packaging

Plastic on a river bank / Horia Varlan via Flickr

About 76% of Americans say that recycling makes them feel better about their purchases. They want companies to make recyclable products and support recycling of the products they manufacture. But most Americans admit that they buy the product without much thought for the packaging.

As it is now, consumers say they want companies use more recycled content in their products. But recycled plastic costs more than virgin plastic. So products with recycled content are more expensive. Too many consumers decline to pay the extra cost unless the company has an excellent marketing program.

The new EPR laws level the playing field for manufacturers. If every company must pay the same costs, products with less recycled material no longer have a price advantage.

But there are some potential downsides:

EPR laws for packaging are intended to motivate manufacturers to make it easier to recycle and with more recycled content. But the packaging that’s hardest to recycle is the kind with multiple layers of different materials. And it exists because it’s much lighter. It uses less material overall. Lighter packaging reduces transportation costs and emissions.

Ditching light-weight packaging because it’s too hard to recycle can trade one environmental headache for another one.

So as EPR laws for packaging become more commonplace, lawmakers, manufacturers, and other stakeholders need to be on the lookout for unintended consequences.