ACC, lawmakers seek common ground on producer responsibility

National Harbor, Md. — It may not have been as dramatic as President Richard Nixon going to China, but a stage at the Plastics Recycling Conference saw some longstanding opponents around recycling policy move toward common ground.

Specifically, a plastics industry trade group and a congressional aide behind the industry's most hated legislation in Washington — the Break Free From Plastic Pollution Act — found themselves agreeing that companies should pay a lot more to support recycling.

Craig Cookson, senior director of plastics sustainability at the American Chemistry Council, suggested ACC and the BFFPPA actually are in broad agreement on a policy called extended producer responsibility.

Cookson noted industry positions have evolved, and he said he agreed with producer responsibility comments on the stage from Shane Trimmer, who helped write the BFFPPA as legislative director for retiring U.S. Rep. Alan Lowenthal, D-Calif.

"We definitely should be able to do something here," Cookson said. "Shane and I are not that far off."

ACC unveiled a federal legislative policy plan in mid-2021 that included, for the first time, the plastics association endorsing EPR policies.

BFFPPA, for its part, also includes EPR provisions. It applies them to all packaging materials, not just plastics.

Trimmer told attendees at the recycling conference that the Break Free Act envisions producer responsibility similar to a system in British Columbia.

He said that system gives companies substantial authority, compared with more government-directed EPR programs in Europe or Ontario.

"When we were looking at the model that would fit best within the United States, there were a lot of mechanisms we were looking into, and we felt that the model that is more run by the brands, [similar] to what we see in British Columbia, is the model that fit the best with how we are currently operating here in the United States," said Trimmer, who until January had been the legislative director to Lowenthal, the lead House author of BFFPPA.

"A big part of why we chose that one is we felt it was one that industry would be more likely to be excited about," said Trimmer, who is currently the legislative director for Rep. Jared Huffman, D-Calif.

The verbal agreement doesn't mean Washington is anywhere close to passing a law around a complicated topic like EPR, and no one at the event suggested it's happening soon. But panelists at the conference, held March 7-9 in suburban Washington, said it showed growing consensus in the U.S. around EPR and said it pointed to the opportunity for future deals.

EPR advocates see it as the key to getting more money into city recycling programs.

"I've got to agree there's high-level alignment here," said Kaitlyn Trent, a plastics campaigner for Greenpeace. "We've done a lot in five years, and I think we're going to do a lot more in the next five years, especially with the global plastics treaty happening."

As well, Rachel Goldstein, North American policy director at candy maker Mars Inc., told the conference that she agreed with Cookson, Trimmer and Trent.

"I can see there are high levels of alignment among stakeholders," she said. "We didn't see that five years ago."

Cookson said ACC is taking policy positions on things like EPR that it would not have publicly supported a few years ago: "We've evolved in a lot of ways."

The group's formal policy position in 2021 endorsed what it called "American-designed" EPR, and Cookson told the conference — sponsored by the Association of Plastic Recyclers and Resource Recycling Inc. — that should mean that brands pay into the system, that funds are directed for recycling and that the system that doesn't "disrupt" innovation.

Nonetheless, there were still plenty of areas of disagreement on the panel, including around chemical recycling policy.

In addition, there are many other powerful interests around EPR that would need to be satisfied in Washington, like consumer product companies and the solid waste industry.

Cookson said there are parts of the mammoth Break Free legislation that ACC opposes. The group has been vocal in fighting a provision that freezes permits on new resin plant construction for three years.

But on EPR, he suggested there are political opportunities.

"I can't say it about all of Break Free, but the producer responsibility stuff, I think there's real opportunities out there," he said. "I think we all agree that supply is an issue. I think we all agree that we need strong end markets and that recycled plastic targets are a good idea."

Both the ACC plan and BFFPPA also included government-mandated recycled-content provisions in plastic products.

Another panel at the conference took a deep dive into EPR policy and what different interest groups would want.

A representative of the American Beverage Association, for example, said that if beverage companies are paying for an EPR system, they want more control of the bottles that come back so they can be recycled into new bottles, rather than be sold into carpet markets.

"We would like to get our bottles back," said Bree Dietly, principal of Breezeway Consulting LLC in Somerville, Mass.

Dietly said the details of how an EPR program is structured are important.

Maine and Oregon became the first two states in the U.S. to pass EPR laws for packaging last year, but many other state legislatures, including New York and Maryland, are actively considering it this year.

"We're agnostic on policy," Dietly said. "We acknowledge that deposits make sense in some places, that EPR makes sense in some places, that minimum content makes sense in some places."

But she said the beverage industry opposed Maine's EPR law, calling it a "lousy bill" because it gives too much control to the state government.

However, the head of the Solid Waste Association of North America noted that local governments have their own concerns.

They still have legal obligations to recycle materials and are worried about what happens to their investments in recycling infrastructure if they lose control over recycling systems, said David Biderman, CEO of SWANA.

"Local governments are responsible by law to set up and support these systems," he said. "If private companies decide that their [return on investment] isn't what they want it to be and they walk away, who is left holding the bag?"

Other speakers noted that some existing EPR programs are in transition.

Eadaoin Quinn, director of business development and procurement for recycler EFS-plastics Inc., said Ontario's EPR program is changing to a system that will be 100 percent funded by companies. As part of that, industry will have a lot more control over the system, she said.

"Pay attention to what's happening there. It will be really interesting to see if it works or if it doesn't," Quinn said.

In the U.S., states seem to be taking different approaches as they debate EPR.

Legislators in Washington state, for example, abandoned plans for EPR legislation in this year's session after it proved too difficult to bridge some gaps in policy.

Heather Trim, executive director of Zero Waste Washington, said her state was not moving to the Maine EPR model, and she said EPR policy requires striking careful balances.

She said Washington state wanted a broad EPR plan and had planned to include more mandates for recycled content for plastic products and provisions studying the toxicity of chemicals used within recycled products.

Until recently, EPR for packaging has been much more popular in Europe and Canada.

But Biderman said there's more interest in EPR policy in the U.S. than ever before, which he said is fallout from China's National Sword policy decision in 2018 to sharply limit imports of low-quality scrap and waste materials.

That scrambled what had been reliable export markets for some recyclables and caused cities major headaches.

"I wasn't very happy in 2017 and 2018 when China imposed National Sword, but looking back four and a half years later, if it wasn't for that, I don't think we'd see all this policy-related activity," he said.