Recycling: A New Look at Who Is Responsible

In the U.S., we’ve never been very good at recycling, and that’s not in any way new news.

But, since our current approach hasn’t managed to even put a dent in the amount of plastic that we throw away, some states are taking a new approach, transferring the responsibility of recycling from consumers to product manufacturers.

In just the past year, legislatures in Maine, Oregon, and Colorado have passed “extended producer responsibility” laws on packaging. The legislation essentially forces producers of consumer goods, such as beverage companies, shampoo companies, and food corporations, to pay for the disposal of the packages and containers their products come in. The process is intended to nudge manufacturers into using more easily recyclable materials, compostable packaging, or horrors, perhaps even less packaging.

In New York state, two plastic packaging bills were recently introduced that would raise the supply of recycled plastics, reduce waste, and incentivize companies to use more sustainable packaging. And where New York state leads, other states likely could follow.

The first proposed bill would establish an extended producer responsibility (EPR) program, which aims to increase collection rates and in turn the supply of recycled materials by shifting some packaging end-of-life management burdens from consumers and governments to industry.

“The EPR bill puts the responsibility from cradle to grave on manufacturers as they will take responsibility for the eventual recycling or reuse”; of packaging, said NY state representative Steve Englebright at a May press conference. “Plastic packaging goes out the door of the manufacturing facility, and they never think about it again. But we have higher taxes and compromised health.” Key features of the bill include requiring companies to gradually reduce their packaging by 50% over 10 years through more sustainable packaging design, switching to reuse/refill systems, or eliminating excess packaging altogether.

The proposed EPR bill also proposes that companies would also be required to transition 90% of their remaining packaging over 12 years to be recyclable, compostable, or made from recycled content. In addition, it would require that in all-new packaging, certain materials will be banned including PFAS, heavy metals, and non-recyclable plastics such as PVC and polystyrene.

Packaging producers would also be required to pay fees to the program, which would be determined via a structure that provides incentives to producers that seek to reduce waste at the source and adopt more sustainable packaging designs and practices. Charges would also be adjusted based on the percentage of post-consumer content, which producers will be required to specify on packaging products.

The second bill, called the Bigger Better Bottle Bill, which is now law, expands New York’s container deposit law to include non-carbonated beverages, wine, and liquor containers. It also raises the deposit fee — the amount returned to the consumer for depositing used containers — from 5 to 10 cents.

Though Englebright said New York’s 40-year-old deposit system has been “tremendously successful,” he believes increasing the return fee will further raise the state’s container redemption rate, which was estimated to be 64% in 2020, and in turn, increase the supply of recyclables moving through the system.

Container deposit programs have been adopted in 10 U.S. states, otherwise known collectively as “bottle bill” states. These states: California, Connecticut, Hawaii, Iowa, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, New York, Oregon, and Vermont, have much higher redemption rates than non-bottle bill states, as well as lower amounts of contaminants in their deposit materials.

“New York policymakers have done very little in the past few years to address the growing problem of solid waste,” NYPIRG campaign organizer Ryan Thoresen Carson said. “Luckily, there is a tried-and-true method, now introduced in the State Assembly, to reduce local governments’ solid waste burden-modernizing the Bottle Bill.”

New York is one of 15 states, mostly on the West Coast or in the Northeast, that have introduced EPR legislation as of early this year. Maine and Oregon were the only two states to see such legislation pass both their upper and lower chambers in 2021.

Extended producer responsibility, the “polluter pays concept,” comes from a 1990 paper by Swedish academics Thomas Lindhqvist and Karl Lidgren, which took root in Europe 30 years ago. Many U.S. states have such policies for e-waste and mattresses. But in the U.S., their adoption for packaging is fairly recent, and those programs won’t be fully up and running for years.

While each state’s legislation varies, the system generally works like this:

• Beverage companies, shampoo-makers, food manufacturers, and other producers will keep track of how much of each sort of packaging they use.

• These producers will reimburse government recycling programs for handling the waste, either directly or through a consortium called a “producer responsibility organization”.

• Fees will be lower for companies that use easily recyclable, compostable, or even reusable packaging, a mechanism that supporters say will provide incentives to adopt more sustainable practices.

• Recycling centers will use the money to cover their operating costs, expand outreach and education, and invest in new equipment.

“We think corporations will produce less virgin materials because they are charged by the amount they put out there, and certainly less eco-unfriendly materials,” said New York state Sen. Todd Kaminsky, a Democrat from Long Island.

To consumers, the recycling system would pretty much stay the same. But the packaging around consumer products would likely look different. If the incentives worked, there’d be less packaging overall, and whatever packaging that would be used would be made more often of compostable or easily recyclable materials, such as glass or aluminum.

“Packaging doesn’t have to be the way we know it,” Kaminsky said. “Why in a box of cereal is there packaging within other packaging? You know, you reach into the box, and there’s a sleeve containing Cheerios or something. But when you get potato chips, it’s just in the sleeve. There’s no box around it. Why is that?”

So, how about you? Would you be willing to pay the deposits and return the containers if it was part of a system that truly promoted recycling in your community, especially if you thought manufacturers were playing an active role?