Some states have taken a different approach after recycling failed to reduce plastic waste in the United States. They are shifting the responsibility of recycling from the consumers to the product manufacturers.
Over the past twelve months, Colorado, Oregon, and Maine have passed extended producer responsibility laws regarding packaging. This legislation forces consumers of consumer goods, such as beverages-makers, shampoo businesses and food corporations to pay for the disposal and recycling of their product’s packaging. This is to encourage manufacturers to use less packaging, more recyclable material and compostable packaging.
As the New York legislature nears its June 2 deadline, it is currently deliberating two extended producer liability bills. Business and environmental groups have been lobbies intensely on details like recycling goals and who should set them. Both industry and environmentalists believe that when New York passes a law it sets a standard or template that other states can follow.
“I’m exhausted,” stated Judith Enck (founder and president of Beyond Plastics), who has been lobbying legislators about the issue. “If a state as large as New York fails to extend producer responsibility, it will have a ripple effect on all other states.”
Extended producer responsibility aEUR” The ungainly name derives from a 1990 paper written by Swedish academics Thomas Lindhqvist, and Karl Lidgren. aEUR was first introduced in Europe thirty years ago. These policies are common in the United States for e-waste, mattresses and other items. However, their adoption of packaging policies is relatively recent in the U.S. and these programs won’t fully be up and running for many years.
Although each state has its own laws, the system works in this way:
“We believe corporations will produce fewer virgin materials because they’re charged by how much they put out there and certainly less eco friendly materials,” stated Todd Kaminsky, a New York State Senator, who is a Democrat from Long Island. Kaminsky sponsored one of the Albany bills.
Consumers would see little change in the recycling system. However, packaging for consumer products might look different. If incentives were effective, packaging would be smaller overall and more likely to be made of recyclable or compostable materials like glass or aluminum.
Kaminsky stated that packaging doesn’t need to look the same as we do. Kaminsky asked, “Why is there packaging in other packaging?” The box is open and you see a sleeve with Cheerios or some other snack. However, potato chips come in a sleeve. It’s unbreakable. “Why is this?”
The U.S. has seen a decline in recycling rates over the past decade. They are now between 30% and 35% for all materials in their waste stream. However, the recycling rate of plastics aEUR”, a more common form of packaging, is much lower. In 2018, the Environmental Protection Agency reported that 8.5% of all plastic refuse was used to make new products. (Two environmental organizations recently estimated that the actual recycling rate was even lower since not all plastics are recycled.
Not only do consumers have to properly sort their containers, but cities and counties also have to recycle. Officials once believed that recycling would pay for itself. This hasn’t been the case due to recent Chinese and Asian country refusals to accept plastic waste imports. The WWF estimated that plastic waste management costs around $32 billion per year in 2021.
The Business Council of New York State represents 3500 businesses and chambers of commerce. It opposes the Albany-based measures.
The business group stated in an open letter that “such radical change will cost, will carry its own risk of unintended consequences and simply isn’t necessary to improve the state’s recycling and waste reduction outcomes.”
However, some national corporations and manufacturers of plastics have been more supportive to a certain extent. The Recycling Partnership, which is funded by companies such as General Mills and Coca-Cola, has supported the idea as long as producers retain some control over the fees or targets. NPR is financially sponsored by Exxon Mobil.
“How can you manage a system this large and get companies to change their packaging designs, perhaps shift to more sustainable materials aEUR?” Michael Washburn is a senior policy advisor at the organization.
At the moment, the most contentious issue in New York’s legislature is how and whether companies can regulate themselves. Kaminsky’s bill is supported by the Recycling Partnership. It requires producers to set their own targets for how recyclable material they will use in their packaging, and how much will be recycled. These targets would be reviewed by an advisory panel made up of representatives from recycling agencies and environmental groups, as well as manufacturers. These plans would eventually be approved by the Department of Environmental Conservation.
These targets are also set out in the rival bill sponsored by Assemblymember Steven Englebright (also a Long Island Democrat). The first ten years would see companies reduce their non-reusable packaging by half. Both bills allow for exceptions for small businesses.
Enck, who was also a former EPA official, said that “we need specific requirements”. He prefers Englebright’s bill to Kaminsky’s. “You don’t give the keys to your car over the plastics industry. We wouldn’t expect that the tobacco industry would solve the problem of smoking. We wouldn’t expect the packaging industry solve the problem with overpackaging.
Some government watchdogs have reservations about the concept of extended producer liability. The high recycling rates in Germany, which adopted this policy in the 1990s, are well-known. These rates include waste-to-energy which is a form recycling and Germany is one of the highest plastics users per capita.
“The Americans say it’s successful. It’s not, says Neil Seldman, Director of the Waste to Wealth Initiative at The Institute for Local Self-Reliance.
However, Germany does not require manufacturers that they reduce their packaging in the same way as Englebright’s bill.
California could adopt a slightly different approach to recycling and reducing packaging this fall. The state could also be subject to an extended producer responsibility system and a 1-cent fee for single-use plastic packaging.
New York lobbyists representing both sides of the issue claim that negotiations are under way to pass a bill in the remaining week of the current legislative session. They also say that if this doesn’t happen they will try again next year.