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Extended Producer Responsibility: Are You Ready?

Do you know what EPR is, and why it matters to you? Read this quick Q&A to find out how EPR will impact brands in the United States, starting in 2025.

Dan Felton, Ameripen Executive Director
Dan Felton, Ameripen Executive Director

Dan Felton, Ameripen’s Executive Director, gives readers a quick primer on Extended Producer Responsibility in this Q&A. Felton will present an in-depth session on EPR updates at the Packaging Recycling Summit this September 16-18 in Anaheim, when brands, materials and machinery suppliers, reprocessors, and materials recovery facilities (MRFs) gather to collaborate on packaging recyclability. More information on the event can be found here.

KO: Please briefly tell us what Ameripen does and describe your role.

DF: AMERIPEN – the American Institute for Packaging and the Environment – is a trade association dedicated to improving packaging and the environment. We are the only material-inclusive packaging industry trade association in the United States representing the entire packaging supply chain. This includes materials suppliers, packaging manufacturers, consumer packaged goods companies, retailers, and end-of-life materials managers. As AMERIPEN’s Executive Director, I develop and champion public policy positions for the U.S. packaging industry on issues related to packaging and the environment, using sound science and a philosophy of material inclusiveness.

KO: If you had to explain Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) to a person on the street (or in a 15 second TikTok video), how would you describe it?

DF: Extended producer responsibility (EPR) is a public policy mechanism that shifts the financial, and sometimes operational, responsibility of the end-of-life management of products from consumers and government to the companies that sell those products to consumers. Brand owners are required to put money for the products they sell (packaging in this instance) into a non-profit organization they help run that pays for recycling and composting infrastructure, collection, sorting, processing and sale of recovered materials to markets for reuse.

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Break out of the ordinary: see what’s new in life sciences packaging