Outlines of plastic waste debate emerge in Congress as lawmakers step up focus

Washington — Plastic waste issues will likely have a higher profile in Congress when lawmakers return in early September.

The debate could include what are — in Washington — new ideas, such as mandated recycled content and bans.

While it's still early stages, some lawmakers are floating ideas like producer responsibility bills for packaging and European Union-style restrictions on some single-use plastics.

But other legislators seem to be steering toward proposals that focus on more traditional goals, like building out government-financed curbside recycling infrastructure.

What's emerging are the broad outlines of a debate. Both groups say municipal recycling programs should get more help in the wake of Asian countries cutting off imports of recyclables. But some lawmakers want Washington to go further and put requirements on industry, like recycled content.

The main plastic waste legislation that made it through Congress just last year, the relatively modest and bipartisan Save Our Seas Act, is back. Senators and members of Congress behind that bill introduced a new version in June that has the support of the plastics industry.

In addition, one plastics group said the industry expects to introduce its main legislative proposal, the Recover Act, this fall. While details are being worked out, early drafts sought $500 million for local recycling programs and advocated a neutral approach that didn't favor or punish particular materials.

A detailed proposal released in July by Sen. Tom Udall, D-N.M., and Rep. Alan Lowenthal, D-Calif., floats EU-style bans on some single-use plastic products, as well as a national container deposit law and collection targets for single-use plastic bottles.

Material neutrality is a key part of what the American Chemistry Council wants in any legislation, said Keith Christman, managing director of plastic markets for ACC, who declined to speak publicly on the Udall-Lowenthal plan but provided general comments.

"Anytime you have legislation that just looks at one material, it provides an incentive for companies to switch to some other material," Christman said. "They need to be careful about creating those kinds of incentives because they could switch you to a material that dramatically increases greenhouse gas emissions."

Both ACC and the Washington-based Plastics Industry Association touted their legislation, the Realizing the Economic Opportunities and Value of Expanding Recycling (Recover) Act. It's designed to support recycling of all materials.

The plastics association said Recover would provide grants through the Environmental Protection Agency to states and cities for things like education or new equipment at materials recovery facilities.

"We believe having a reliable, steady supply of recovered material will encourage companies to use more recycled content," the association said in written comments delivered Aug. 21 to Udall and Lowenthal.

An aide to Lowenthal said those lawmakers plan to introduce formal legislation in the fall.

The Washington debate seems like it could head in new directions.

Christman, for example, said ACC is open to discussions about federal legislation with a fee on foodservice packaging, applied somewhere at the wholesale level, that it first proposed to California state lawmakers earlier this summer to raise $100 million there to finance waste management.

"We would be interested in talking to legislators about that," he said.

The plastics association said if Congress puts fees on any containers, the fees should cover all packaging materials, not just plastic.

The Plastics Industry Association also told Congress that it would support voluntary, industry-led programs or public-private partnerships aimed at increasing the recovery of materials, including use of post-consumer recycled content or bioplastics, as long as industry is involved in their creation and the programs are sustainable.

As well, the association told lawmakers that chemical recycling technologies "offer promising possibilities" for harder-to-recycle resins.

ACC's Christman said chemical recycling could mean more recycled content in plastic products. But environmental groups told lawmakers they did not support chemical recycling or waste-to-energy incineration.

The Lowenthal aide said they're still analyzing the more than 100 comments they received and has "seen a lot of good faith efforts," including in proposals from industry.

It's not clear what path legislation might take or how different proposals might be combined. Other lawmakers have called for EPA to write a national recycling strategy.

Christman said the new Save Our Seas Act "would probably be the one that gets the most attention."

"The important part of the Save Our Seas Act is it has strong bipartisan support and has a history of passing," Christman said.

But the Lowenthal aide and environmental groups said that while they support the latest Save Our Seas bill, it was too limited. Focusing on recycling infrastructure is only working on the "back end," the aide said.

Lowenthal "is trying to address the issue holistically. It's not something that is just addressing the recycling infrastructure," the aide said. "It is past time for us to try to do something."

Environmental groups made similar arguments. The Ocean Conservancy, a group that partners closely with the plastics industry on the Trash Free Seas Alliance, said it strongly supports Save Our Seas but added that more is needed.

It hopes for more federal legislation to "address the impact of unnecessary plastic products and reduce their usage, and promote alternative nonplastic, sustainable materials that do not create additional negative impacts on our environment."

The Udall-Lowenthal proposal seems to be emerging as the favorite of environmental groups.

A coalition of more than 50 groups, including Surfrider Foundation and Greenpeace, praised it as "bold" and "comprehensive" and urged lawmakers to look at extended producer responsibility legislation like that proposed in Washington state but later changed to a study bill.

That proposal would prohibit a producer of plastic packaging from selling in the state unless they were part of a plastic stewardship program approved by a state agency, they said in lengthy comments provided by San Clemente, Calif.-based Surfrider.

The groups told lawmakers that "recycling is not the answer to the plastic pollution crisis."

One industry executive, Kevin Kelly, CEO of Emerald Packaging Inc. in Union City, Calif., suggested in an August blog post that neglecting recycling has put the plastics packaging sector in a tough spot. He noted tough new proposals in California's Legislature.

"After years of neglecting recycling, talking about recyclable solutions but not delivering, and working to stop bans, the plastics packaging industry stands at a precipice," he said. "Activists have taken matters into their own hands. It's not about bag bans anymore."