Fisk Johnson, chairman and CEO of consumer products company SC Johnson, has an idea of what it will take to meet recycling goals, and it's not the approach that some in the plastics industry prefer.
"I think the single biggest thing that we can do is advocate for greater regulation," Johnson told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel in an interview during the opening of the Blue Paradox exhibit at the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago.
A few brands are supporting a version of an extended producer responsibility fee or bottle deposit programs to boost recycling. So are groups like the Consumer Goods Forum, with a membership list including SC Johnson, Procter & Gamble, Unilever and the retailer Walmart.
But Fisk Johnson is far more direct in his comments about what should be done than most collaborate industry groups.
"I continue to believe that the single most important thing that we can do as a country is pass federal extended producer responsibility regulation," he told the Journal Sentinel.
The company says it has eliminated 11 million pounds of "problematic plastic packaging" such as glued labels, black colors and multilayer films that are harder to move through the recycling stream.
SC Johnson, based in Racine, Wis., is nearing its goal of using 25 percent post-consumer recycled content in plastic packaging by 2025, Fisk Johnson said. The company says it uses more than 178 million pounds of plastic each year, but it has reduced its plastic footprint by nearly 13 percent since 2018.
