NRC Panelists: Strong EPR Requires Reduction, Transparency
Marissa Heffernan | November 14, 2022 | Resource Recycling
Model extended producer responsibility bills and federal funding were two hot topics at the 2022 National Recycling Congress, with panelists calling for packaging reduction and a broad overhaul of the recycling system.
The 2022 National Recycling Congress was held virtually on Nov. 9 and Nov. 10, put on by the National Recycling Coalition.
In the Nov. 9 plenary session “State EPR for Packaging Policies,” panelists Bob Gedert with the National Recycling Coalition, Judith Enck with Beyond Plastics and Martha Ainsworth with the Sierra Club Zero Waste Team spoke about what makes a strong extended producer responsibility (EPR) bill.
Enck emphasized that we “cannot pass weak laws” when it comes to EPR.
“I’ve got concerns with all four statutes on the books and I think they can be significantly stronger,” she said. For example, they should avoid “glaring loopholes and exemptions” like in California’s SB 54, which allows for exemption from mandates if the packaging provides unique challenges.
The National Recycling Coalition is “not trying to identify what is the best legislative bill to promote or endorse, but to identify ‘what are the key issues?'” Gedert said to the 171 people on the webinar.
Some of those key issues are establishing best practices and maximum benefits from programs without a producer responsibility organization (PRO) and reimbursing service providers for costs of systems with a “lock-box,” wherein fees paid on packaging will be used only for EPR purposes, Gedert said.
Other hallmarks of a strong EPR program are that it is governed by a board that includes reuse, recycling and composting service providers and the general public and that any new systems must support and build upon existing reduction, reuse, recycling and composting systems rather than impede them.
Gedert said any EPR system with a PRO should set up that PRO to finance but not operate the systems, make it subject to strong governmental oversight and transparency. “No PRO should be a monopoly,” he added.
“EPR bills that focus mainly on the end of a product’s useful life and distributing funds to recycling centers miss most of the original purpose of EPR and fail to minimize environmental impacts,” he said.
EPR bills should provide economic incentives for producers to “design their product better, while making sure the polluter pays and penalizing non-circular products,” Gedert said, and both products and packaging should be designed with the lowest life cycle impacts possible.
Both Gedert and Enck said there should be bans on all thermal processing of covered products and EPR bills should seek to minimize or eliminate toxic substances and incorporate justice, equity, diversity and inclusion.
“In your bill, when you define recycling, you have to be really clear that it does not include waste-to-energy or pyrolysis,” Enck said, along with any other forms of thermal processing.
