EPR laws continue to spread

Posted by Jenni Spinner -- Packaging Digest, 2/14/2012 10:11:51 AM

By Heather Caliendo, PlasticsToday

EPR laws

Product Stewardship Institute CEO Scott Cassel believes when it comes to recycling packaging products there must be a balance between innovation and regulation.

"But the current system is inadequate, and the demand is greater than ever," Cassel told an audience at The Packaging Conference held Feb. 6-8 in Aria City Center, Las Vegas.

Nearly one-third of all municipal solid waste in the U.S. is packaging, which puts it at the forefront of the sustainability agenda for both the public and private sectors, according to the Product Stewardship Institute (PSI), a nonprofit organization based in Boston, MA.

Cassel said implementing a comprehensive extended producer responsibility (EPR) system in the United States would be a step in the right direction.

EPR policy holds producers responsible for the entire lifecycle of products and the packaging they produce. One aim of the policy is to reduce the amount of packaging, and to use environmentally preferable materials. Many of these laws are in place in Europe, and in parts of Canada.

Maine enacted the country's first EPR laws on electronics, thermostats, fluorescent lamps, and comprehensive framework. It also passed laws on automobile switches and batteries. In the U.S., there are now more than 70 EPR laws in 32 states on 10 products, according to PSI.

But Cassel feels the U.S. can do more.

Read the entire Plastics Today article here.

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What is extended producer responsibility supposed to fix? It is an idea in search of a problem!

With two-thirds of all municipal solid waste in the U.S. not packaging, when all the (unsustainable) recycling and take back propaganda has run its course, the country's municipalities still have all that solid waste in need of disposal.

Energy-from-waste operations provide rational (and sustainable) packaging material disposal solutions already some of the in the most densely populated parts of the nation.

What our culture and marketplace do not need are wasteful dis-economies removing the cost of received benefits (packaged goods)from the beneficiaries (packaged goods consumers).

Tom Dunn - 2012-14-2 14:41:57 EST

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