Free Recycling Article

Included in this article:

• Businesses that make, sell, or distribute packaged products will soon feel the affects of new environmental regulations for packaging materials enacted in a number of U.S. states.
• These regulatory regimes are based on the principle of extended producer responsibility (EPR), and they will impose detailed reporting requirements and potentially substantial fees on affected organizations.
• EPR packaging policies are designed to reduce packaging waste, increase the recycling rates of packaging materials, expand and improve municipal recycling systems and prod businesses to develop more eco-friendly packaging.
• However, these policies will unfairly penalize businesses that use fiber-based packaging if they don’t adequately reflect that such materials are already recycled at high rates and that a robust recycling infrastructure and responsible end markets for these materials already exist.
• To avoid this unfairness, organizations across the whole fiber-based packaging value chain need to become actively involved in shaping the content of EPR packaging laws, regulations, and programs.