Skip to main content
Sister Publication Links
  • Sustainable Plastics
  • Rubber News
Subscribe
  • Sign Up Free
  • Login
  • Subscribe
  • News
    • Processor News
    • Suppliers
    • More News
    • Digital Edition
    • End Markets
    • Special Reports
    • Newsletters
    • Videos
    • Injection Molding
    • Blow Molding
    • Film & Sheet
    • Pipe/Profile/Tubing
    • Rotomolding
    • Thermoforming
    • Recycling
    • Machinery
    • Materials
    • Molds/Tooling
    • Product news
    • Design
    • K Show
    • Mergers & Acquisitions
    • Sustainability
    • Public Policy
    • Material Insights Videos
    • Numbers that Matter
    • Automotive
    • Packaging
    • Medical
    • Consumer Products
    • Construction
    • Processor of the Year
    • Best Places to Work
      • 2023 winners
    • Women Breaking the Mold
    • Rising Stars
    • Diversity
    • Most Interesting Social Media Accounts in Plastics
  • Opinion
    • The Plastics Blog
    • Kickstart
    • One Good Resin
    • Pellets and Politics
    • All Things Data
    • Viewpoint
    • From Pillar to Post
    • Perspective
    • Mailbag
    • Fake Plastic Trees
  • Shop Floor
    • Blending
    • Compounding
    • Drying
    • Injection Molding
    • Purging
    • Robotics
    • Size Reduction
    • Structural Foam
    • Tooling
    • Training
  • Events
    • K Show Livestream
    • Plastics News Events
    • Industry Events
    • Injection Molding & Design Expo
    • Livestreams/Webinars
    • Editorial Livestreams
    • Ask the Expert
    • Plastics News Events Library
    • Processor of the Year submissions
    • Plastics News Executive Forum
    • Injection Molding & Design Expo
    • Plastics News Caps & Closures
    • Women Breaking the Mold Networking Forum
    • Plastics in Automotive
    • Bioplastics Live
    • PN Live: Mergers and Acquisitions
    • Polymer Points Live
    • Numbers that Matter Live
    • Plastics in Politics Live
    • Sustainable Plastics Live
    • Plastics Caps & Closures Library
    • Plastics in Healthcare Library
    • Women Breaking the Mold Networking Forum Library
  • Rankings & Data
    • Injection Molders
    • Blow Molders
    • Film Sheet
    • Thermoformers
    • Pipe Profile Tubing
    • Rotomolders
    • Mold/Toolmakers
    • LSR Processors
    • Recyclers
    • Compounders - List
    • Association - List
    • Plastic Lumber - List
    • All
  • Directory
  • Resin Prices
    • Resin Prices Overview
    • Commodity Thermoplastics
    • High Temperature Thermoplastics
    • Engineering Thermoplastics
    • Recycled Plastics
    • Thermosets
  • Custom
    • Sponsored Content
    • LS Mtron Sponsored Content
    • Conair Sponsored Content
    • KraussMaffei Sponsored Content
    • ENGEL Sponsored Content
    • White Papers
    • Classifieds
    • Place an Ad
    • Sign up for Early Classified
MENU
Breadcrumb
  1. Home
  2. News
January 19, 2022 01:06 PM

From EPR to 'picking on plastics,' groups see continued strong focus

Steve Toloken
Assistant Managing Editor
Plastics News Staff
  • Tweet
  • Share
  • Share
  • Email
  • More
    Reprints Print
    Susan Collins-main_i.jpg
    Collins

    Like plastics industry lobbyists, environmental groups and government officials expect a lot more legislation and activity this year around plastics, waste and environmental issues.

    That's been the clear trend line. In 2021, for example, Maine and Oregon passed the country's first extended producer responsibility laws for packaging, opening the door to regulations that companies pay much more of the cost to recycle.

    As well, governments in California, Washington state and New Jersey have all passed tough new mandates on recycled content in plastic packaging.

    At a recent online conference, "Shifting Tides: Trends in Beverage Container Deposit and Packaging Legislation," environmentalists and state officials said they expect more of the same in 2022, including work with bottle bills.

    "There was a breakthrough that happened with recycling legislation for packaging in 2021," said Susan Collins, president of the Container Recycling Institute, which organized the Jan. 10 event. "It's been a year like none other in the 12 years that I've been in this job."

    Plastics industry lobbyists have noted similar trends in their own looks ahead to 2022 in state and federal policy.

    For their part, Collins and others at CRI's event said they see more legislators linking worries about climate change with poor recycling and lack of circularity in materials use.

    As well, they said public concerns are driven by cities facing higher costs for recycling in the wake of China's 2018 National Sword ban on imports of scrap materials.

    One state official sees skepticism among state legislators over industry failures to meet past commitments.

    "The one thing I noticed, having been around the block for a couple of decades, is … a whole new level of skepticism towards industry, and in particular the plastics industry, which is really founded I believe on decades of broken promises and failed commitments," said David Allaway, a senior policy analyst in the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality.

     

    Sanborn

    A policy aide to Rep. Alan Lowenthal, D-Calif., a key author of the Break Free From Plastic Pollution Act, said there's more bipartisan interest in recycling policy, partly because of the higher costs local governments faced after China's National Sword ban.

    "We're just starting to see the dominoes fall in kind of an existential way," said Shane Trimmer, legislative director to Lowenthal. "Now the taxpayers are seeing it and they're letting policymakers know it. In a more bipartisan way, they're saying there's an issue on the ground."

    Heidi Sanborn, the head of the California Statewide Commission on Recycling Markets and Curbside Recycling, said policymakers are increasingly linking climate with waste, recycling and resource extraction.

    "We've got China Sword, all this pressure on sustainability, climate, the fires, tornadoes and hurricanes — everybody's seeing it," she said. "It's put a ton of pressure on everybody getting it together and really starting to close the loop. They can finally connect waste management in a circular economy with climate."

    Oregon's Allaway said the debate should look at reducing overall consumption, rather than focusing on trying to recycle everything, and cautioned against "picking on plastics."

    "There's been a lot of picking on plastics in the last 45 minutes; it's a really easy target," he said. "There's the potential for some really regrettable substitutes. I think we need to figure out how to live with plastics.

    "The reality is that the quantity of materials is just too large," Allaway said. "We have to reduce our material use and we have to get much smarter about reducing the impacts of certain materials and eliminating others from the economy altogether."

     

    While parts of the conference focused on nitty-gritty details of legislation, like the chances of passing updated container deposit laws in Connecticut and Vermont, the event also took a broad brush look at how views on recycling are changing.

    Panelists said they see more questions from the public and lawmakers over how recycling works in practice, such as the health and environmental problems that come from exporting scrap materials to low-income countries that lack good waste management systems.

    "It was huge in California this year, with exporting to countries that can't handle it," said Sanborn, who is also executive director of the National Stewardship Action Council.

    She also pointed to concerns about where new plastics factories are located and opposition to a proposed Formosa Group LA LLC plant in Louisiana: "Why is another facility going into a low-income neighborhood?"

    Several panelists said they see emerging concerns around additives in packaging materials, including plastics, and how those additives can then show up in recycled materials.

    "I think that more of these issues are hitting home in a way that they haven't before, and a lot of it is because of the greater focus on justice and equity issues," said Paul Burns, executive director at the Vermont Public Interest Research Group.

    In general, panelists said they see much more interest from lawmakers around waste and environmental issues, including more focus on extended producer responsibility systems that require companies to pay more to support recycling systems.

    For example, the new governor of New York, Kathy Hochul, in her State of the State report in early January endorsed EPR for packaging, calling it a "fundamental shift … that requires producers, not taxpayers, to cover the cost of recycling."

    "There's absolutely been a shift," said Lou Rosado Burch, Connecticut program director for Citizens for a Clean Environment. "We've been advocating for one form of EPR strategy or another for many years now, and it seems to me that over the last two years, you're starting to get a response. Legislators seem to know what you're talking about.

    "Policymakers at the state and local level are starting to understand we have a problem now, perhaps because the cost of recycling solid waste has gone up so dramatically, whether it's because of the China green sword or other market factors," he said.

     

    In Oregon, Allaway said the new EPR law "changes the dynamic" for how government officials look at what should and should not be recycled. He said a state commission will start to make recommendations this year.

    "We're going to be looking at some materials that some in industry would like us to collect for recycling [but] that we might not agree makes sense to recycle," Allaway said. "It's a very different dynamic."

    He said officials will look at economic and environmental impacts of materials, including using life cycle analysis and studying the impacts on greenhouse gas emissions, energy use and toxicity. He called it a change in thinking.

    "Recycling is not this folksy grassroots thing that can rely on volunteers," Allaway said. "This is a real business that is faced with very, very challenging economic conditions. If we want a functioning recycling system, we need to invest in it like other utilities."

    While the panelists in general expect a lot more government attention to waste and recycling challenges, speakers at one point turned the discussion to broader national debates over elections and the impact that could have on the waste legislation they favor.

    "This industry is doing better now than we have in a long time, but our democracy is under attack, and it is going to slow things down," said Sanborn. "My worry for our industry, even though we're right on the cusp of some really big stuff, I'm afraid there are other things nationally that are going to take precedence and probably should. But let's do the best we can and make sure we're working not just in our industry but on making sure we have good representative democratic government."

    RECOMMENDED FOR YOU
    Clean Vision to spend $50M on West Virginia pyrolysis plant
    Letter
    to the
    Editor

    Do you have an opinion about this story? Do you have some thoughts you'd like to share with our readers? Plastics News would love to hear from you. Email your letter to Editor at [email protected]

    Most Popular
    1
    PP resin prices saw a big drop in May
    2
    Orion steps up production at South Carolina compounding plant
    3
    EPA standing pat on pyrolysis regulations for now
    4
    Germany's Stratec buys medical molder Natech to boost US presence
    5
    Sustainable materials a focus of Primex expansion
    SIGN UP FOR OUR FREE NEWSLETTERS
    EMAIL ADDRESS

    Please enter a valid email address.

    Please enter your email address.

    Please verify captcha.

    Please select at least one newsletter to subscribe.

    Get our newsletters

    Staying current is easy with Plastics News delivered straight to your inbox, free of charge.

    Subscribe today

    Subscribe to Plastics News

    Subscribe now
    Connect with Us
    • LinkedIn
    • Facebook
    • Twitter
    • Instagram

    Plastics News covers the business of the global plastics industry. We report news, gather data and deliver timely information that provides our readers with a competitive advantage.

    Contact Us

    1155 Gratiot Avenue
    Detroit MI 48207-2997

    Customer Service:
    877-320-1723

    Resources
    • About
    • Staff
    • Editorial Calendar
    • Media Kit
    • Data Store
    • Digital Edition
    • Custom Content
    • People
    • Contact
    • Careers
    • Sitemap
    Related Crain Publications
    • Sustainable Plastics
    • Rubber News
    • Tire Business
    • Urethanes Technology
    Legal
    • Terms and Conditions
    • Privacy Policy
    • Privacy Request
    Copyright © 1996-2023. Crain Communications, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
    • News
      • Processor News
        • Injection Molding
        • Blow Molding
        • Film & Sheet
        • Pipe/Profile/Tubing
        • Rotomolding
        • Thermoforming
        • Recycling
      • Suppliers
        • Machinery
        • Materials
        • Molds/Tooling
        • Product news
        • Design
      • More News
        • K Show
        • Mergers & Acquisitions
        • Sustainability
        • Public Policy
        • Material Insights Videos
        • Numbers that Matter
      • Digital Edition
      • End Markets
        • Automotive
        • Packaging
        • Medical
        • Consumer Products
        • Construction
      • Special Reports
        • Processor of the Year
        • Best Places to Work
          • 2023 winners
        • Women Breaking the Mold
        • Rising Stars
        • Diversity
        • Most Interesting Social Media Accounts in Plastics
      • Newsletters
      • Videos
    • Opinion
      • The Plastics Blog
      • Kickstart
      • One Good Resin
      • Pellets and Politics
      • All Things Data
      • Viewpoint
      • From Pillar to Post
      • Perspective
      • Mailbag
      • Fake Plastic Trees
    • Shop Floor
      • Blending
      • Compounding
      • Drying
      • Injection Molding
      • Purging
      • Robotics
      • Size Reduction
      • Structural Foam
      • Tooling
      • Training
    • Events
      • K Show Livestream
      • Plastics News Events
        • Plastics News Executive Forum
        • Injection Molding & Design Expo
        • Plastics News Caps & Closures
        • Women Breaking the Mold Networking Forum
        • Plastics in Automotive
      • Industry Events
      • Injection Molding & Design Expo
      • Livestreams/Webinars
        • Bioplastics Live
        • PN Live: Mergers and Acquisitions
      • Editorial Livestreams
        • Polymer Points Live
        • Numbers that Matter Live
        • Plastics in Politics Live
        • Sustainable Plastics Live
      • Ask the Expert
      • Plastics News Events Library
        • Plastics Caps & Closures Library
        • Plastics in Healthcare Library
        • Women Breaking the Mold Networking Forum Library
      • Processor of the Year submissions
    • Rankings & Data
      • Injection Molders
      • Blow Molders
      • Film Sheet
      • Thermoformers
      • Pipe Profile Tubing
      • Rotomolders
      • Mold/Toolmakers
      • LSR Processors
      • Recyclers
      • Compounders - List
      • Association - List
      • Plastic Lumber - List
      • All
    • Directory
    • Resin Prices
      • Resin Prices Overview
      • Commodity Thermoplastics
      • High Temperature Thermoplastics
      • Engineering Thermoplastics
      • Recycled Plastics
      • Thermosets
    • Custom
      • Sponsored Content
      • LS Mtron Sponsored Content
      • Conair Sponsored Content
      • KraussMaffei Sponsored Content
      • ENGEL Sponsored Content
      • White Papers
      • Classifieds
        • Place an Ad
        • Sign up for Early Classified