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Five U.S. Packaging Bills Under Consideration

While each one of the five proposed bills taps into elements valuable to advancing a circular economy for packaging, none provides a complete strategy across the entire recycling system.

Gavel
We currently have five bills before Congress related in one way or another to packaging and its end-of-life management.

Historically across the U.S., waste and recycling policies related to financing have been driven at the state level. This is primarily a result of the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) from 1976 that gave states the authority to manage their own waste streams. RCRA granted the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency a supportive but non-regulatory federal engagement role for all non-hazardous waste. This means there has been minimal federal policy related to the management of packaging and its disposal, and its related funding, since RCRA was enacted.

Over the last year, however, as plastic marine pollution and challenging recycling economics have dominated headlines, interest in related federal policy has grown. We currently have five bills before Congress related in one way or another to packaging and its end-of-life management, and also, on June 17, the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee held a hearing dedicated to the challenges of recycling.

As we look to the future in a post-COVID world, the status of these bills is uncertain. On one hand, interest may grow because some of these bills offer much needed stimulus funding to states and could help create jobs and/or help resolve concerns around the future of recycling—a key environmental priority for many consumers. On the other hand, in a time of severely constrained state and local budgets and a possible economic recession, waste and recycling issues may lose steam as governments choose to prioritize limited funding toward key priorities in health, safety, and education.

 While we don’t have a crystal ball to say for certain what will happen, AMERIPEN does believe a deeper examination into the potential needs and opportunities of federal legislative engagement in packaging policy can help us prepare to offer proactive strategies and solutions that could benefit our industry and communities at large across the U.S.

Prior to COVID, we saw several states’ legislatures exploring the concept of extended producer responsibility (EPR) for packaging, where producers would be required to help pay the costs of end-of-life management of their products. Now, as local budgets have become even more strained, we anticipate this interest will grow, and the likelihood of new state laws for some sort of shared financial responsibility to include brand owners and/or packaging producers is highly probable. We also believe that while COVID has helped increase public awareness of the value of packaging, both consumers and producers remain committed, perhaps even more so post-COVID, to balancing that value with a more circular packaging economy where more packaging formats can be reused or recycled.


Read related articles from Packaging World:

Packaging Policy Update & 2020 Outlook

Fighting Back Against Anti-Plastics Legislation

Roadmap Aims to Address Systemic Issues in the U.S. Recycling System

Planning for Recovery Systems Change

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