Vermonters can have their bottle bill and EPR for packaging too

By Bill Sheehan and Matt Prindiville, Product Policy Institute

A controversial EPR-related bill in Vermont has died and hearings took place on a new bill.

Vermont bill H.218 died, according to Resource Recycling.  It was introduced in 2010, reportedly the brainchild of Coca-Cola and artfully framed as an “EPR Framework” bill.  It would have implemented producer financing for collection of packaging and printed paper while repealing the state’s bottle bill - which is the state’s most successful recycling initiative, collecting over 80% of beverage containers sold into Vermont.

Hearings were held on a new bill, H.485, in mid-January.  The new bill is mostly a traditional solid waste management plan based on government responsibility for recycling and waste management.  However, the bill mentions extended producer responsibility, in the form of possible agency recommendations in future reports.  Surprisingly, that was enough to draw opposition testimony from the Toy Industry Association and the anti-EPR Product Management Alliance.

The bill allows the Commissioner of the Department of Environmental Conservation to recommend options for legislative consideration, including:  (A) product and packaging bans, (B) tax incentives; and (C) deposit and return legislation or extended producer responsibility legislation for certain products.

While attempting to brand EPR for packaging and printed paper as being superior to bottle bills, Coca Cola and advocates for this approach missed the mark.  PPI has always advocated that industry-run bottle bills are not only EPR, but are model examples for successful EPR programs and ones to build on. 

Opponents have argued that bottle deposits are overly prescriptive, and don’t allow manufacturers the flexibility to create their own systems.  We would argue that container-deposits are a policy tool to achieve robust performance, and that industry-run bottle bill initiatives meet the definition of EPR because manufacturers are “physically and financially” responsible for their products.

Besides, we want to allow government to be prescriptive when results aren’t being achieved.  For another example beyond deposits, in 2006, Maine passed legislation to incorporate a $5 financial bounty in their underperforming EPR law for mercury thermostats, paid to anyone with an old thermostat.  Once the bounty was in place, returns to Maine’s thermostat EPR program went through the roof and is now the highest-performing program in the nation, with collection wildly exceeding that of any other state.

We hope Vermont will continue to lead on producer responsibility legislation, and that Vermonters will realize they can have their bottle bill and EPR for packaging and printed paper, too.  We’ll have to wait and see whether the beverage industry will support this concept.  For now, they’re busy promoting EPR in non-bottle bill states. 

For many of us who live in states with mature, successful bottle bill initiatives, we want to have EPR for packaging and printed paper too, but we’re not going to sacrifice the most successful recycling (and EPR) programs that we already have for the sake of winning industry support.  Several provinces in Canada and many EU countries have already figured this out: Bottle bills and EPR for packaging can go hand in hand.

Recycling Reconsidered

Here’s  an important new book just published by MIT Press. It builds a compelling case that “Recycling as we know it today generates the illusion of progress while allowing industry to maintain the status quo and place responsibility on consumers and local government.”  PPI will review in more detail in future blogs; in the meantime, below are the publisher’s blurb and several endorsements  (disclosure: I reviewed the book for MIT Press).

-- Bill Sheehan

Recycling Reconsidered:  The Present Failure and Future Promise of Environmental Action in the United States.  By Samantha MacBride.  © 2012, MIT Press. 

Recycling  is widely celebrated as an environmental success story. The accomplishments of the recycling movement can be seen in municipal practice, a thriving private recycling industry, and widespread public support and participation. In the United States, more people recycle than vote. But, as Samantha MacBride points out in this book, the goals of recycling--saving the earth (and trees), conserving resources, and greening the economy--are still far from being realized. The vast majority of solid wastes are still burned or buried.

MacBride  argues that, since the emergence of the recycling movement in 1970, manufacturers of products that end up in waste have successfully prevented the implementation of more onerous, yet far more effective, forms of sustainable waste policy. Recycling as we know it today generates the illusion of progress while allowing industry to maintain the status quo and place responsibility on consumers and local government. Most disturbingly, it does so with the strong support of environmental social movements that defend recycling even as they grapple with its shortcomings.

MacBride  offers a series of case studies in recycling that pose provocative questions about whether the current ways we deal with waste are really the best ways to bring about real sustainability and environmental justice. MacBride does not aim to debunk or discourage recycling but to help us think beyond recycling as it is today. In the name of ecological citizenship, she challenges us to consider larger problems of solid waste, the global range of environmental threats, and policy alternatives that go beyond curbside collection of cans, bottles, and paper.

MIT Press  $27.00  (CLOTH)  312 pp.  ISBN-10:  0-262-01600-1   ISBN-13:  978-0-262-01600-1

About the Author

Samantha MacBride teaches at Columbia University’s School of Public and International Affairs and is a professional in local waste governance.

Endorsements

“With  a thoughtful and critical eye, this study deconstructs municipal recycling, sorting the valuable aspects from those that just ‘feel good’ and reveals the strategic tensions that arise when a social movement, the ‘zero waste’ recycling movement, aligns with a business sector, the recycling industry. With a comfortable mix of technical description, financial analysis and good story telling the book challenges the simple notions of glass and plastic recycling and ‘shared product responsibility.’ Recognizing the important role that private enterprise can play in reuse, recycling and composting, this book concludes that good government policy remains a critical force in driving a sustainable materials economy.”

Ken Geiser, Professor of Work Environment, Director, Lowell Center for Sustainable Production, University of Massachusetts, Lowell

 “Samantha  MacBride has produced an outstanding study that asks profound sociological questions about the way our recycling systems are organized. Her concept of ‘busy-ness’ is right on target: consumers, environmentalists, and governments are busy recycling and feeling good while the waste industry pursues profits, and the ultimate goals of sustainability and equity get lost in the shuffle. She demonstrates that the recycling movement itself is a big part of the problem, having never made it a priority to regulate, monitor, and focus on manufacturers’ waste, and blindly embracing the consumer as the center of a “can-do” ideology, to the neglect of troubling ecological and market realities. Drawing on her years of experience as a recycling professional, MacBride outlines bold and sensible policy recommendations for a just and sustainable recycling system and the broader materials economy. This book is a must-read for scholars, activists, and policy makers.

David Naguib Pellow, Don Martindale Professor of Sociology, University of Minnesota and author of Garbage Wars: The Struggle for Environmental Justice in Chicago

 “As  the title implies, Samantha MacBride’s Recycling Reconsidered takes a serious, timely, and unvarnished look at recycling in the United States. Her agenda is clearly utilitarian—not to convince us of the environmental virtues of recycling or to offer a cynical appraisal of why it doesn’t work but to ask thoughtful questions and make reasonable suggestions well beyond the often trite assessments that regularly appear in print. You can argue with her conclusions, but you cannot dismiss her data, her careful analysis, and her no-nonsense approach.”

Martin V. Melosi, author of The Sanitary City

Photo credit: MIT Press 

Got Jobs? Bottle Bill States Do

By Matt Prindiville, Associate Director

Just in time for the holidays comes a hopeful message about recycling and job creation from our friends at the Container Recycling Institute.  Last week they released an exhaustive study on the job impacts of container-deposit-refund systems, more commonly known as bottle bills.  For folks that live in states with bottle bills (like my home state of Maine), it probably doesn’t come as a surprise that these recycling initiatives create jobs.  However, what may be surprising is just how much local economic activity they actually create, and the serious opportunities that exist to create jobs through the expansion of deposit-refund recycling laws.

Their chief findings were that:

·        “Recycling creates many more jobs than disposal,” and bottle bills create the most jobs of all.  While several studies have also confirmed this as a generally well-understood principle, CRI adds new comprehensive data and the added dimension of comparing container-deposit systems with traditional municipal-run recycling and solid waste programs.

·        “Deposits create more jobs than curbside recycling relative to beverage containers.” CRI estimates that collecting bottles and cans through container-deposit systems yields 11 to 38 times as many jobs as collecting these same containers in curbside recycling programs. 

·        “Material throughput is the primary driver for recycling jobs.”  This is a fancy way of saying, “the more you collect for recycling, the more jobs you create.”  Because states with bottle bills collect three times more beverage containers than non-bottle bill states, CRI documents that they commensurately reap the benefits of the added jobs associated with collecting more material for recycling.

·        “The secondary driver of container-recycling jobs is the amount of workers required to collect, sort and transport the containers.”  With regards to job creation, bottle bills succeed here again due to the decentralized, entrepreneurial nature of container-deposit systems versus municipal recycling.

·        “Jobs gained in recycling far outweigh any jobs lost in extraction of virgin materials, landfilling or domestic manufacturing.”  CRI’s analysis effectively makes the case that increased jobs from recycling more materials significantly offsets – by an exponentially-wide margin – any potential job losses in landfilling, and/or extraction and use of virgin materials.

The CRI report complements the recent report by the Tellus Institute, which estimates that 1.5 million new jobs can be created by increasing the US recycling rate from 33% to 75%.  If you’re a policy maker struggling to come up with job-creation policies, this is welcome news.  When you consider that states with container deposit laws already achieve between 70 and 90% recycling rates for beverage containers today, increasing and expanding bottle bills seems to be a no-brainer. 

For skeptics that think any new jobs created would be low-wage sorting jobs at materials recovery facilities or bottle depots, both the CRI and Tellus reports demonstrate that increasing recycling directly translates into reviving America’s manufacturing sector.  According to the Tellus report, increasing the US recycling rate to 75% through container-deposit laws and other EPR initiatives could lead to an increase of 550,000 new American manufacturing jobs, an almost 200% increase.

Lawmakers now have compelling evidence that recycling isn’t just saving trees and energy.  It can also be about growing good jobs at home and creating entrepreneurial opportunities, all while protecting the environment at the same time.  Now, that truly is good news for the holidays!

EPA Sustainable Packaging Dialogue: Big Consumer Goods Companies Not All On Same Page

By Bill Sheehan, Executive Director, Product Policy Institute

From September 2010 through August 2011, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency convened and facilitated a dialogue on how to finance recycling of consumer goods in the United States. The dialogue included four two-day meetings. Product Policy Institute was one of 30 invited organizations and businesses. Participants included representatives from ten consumer goods companies (such as Proctor & Gamble and Coca-Cola), two retailers (Wal-Mart and Target), seven state governments, five local governments, three environmental public interest organizations, and other non-governmental organizations [see report, Appendix B, p. 120]. The final report from the year-long dialogue was released on EPA’s website on December 9th and a public comment period has begun [see below].

The stakeholder dialogue showed a gaping divergence between public interest organizations and governments on the one hand, and the consumer packaged goods companies, on the other. Most of the former group entered the dialogue with the understanding that it would primarily focus on extended producer responsibility as the most promising solution to boost recycling of packaging materials in the U.S, the vast majority of which are wasted in landfills and incinerators. Governmental representatives made it clear that municipal recycling systems are maxed out, and that current taxpayer and ratepayer funding and decision-making is inadequate to achieve needed results. 

Instead of exploring EPR, industry representatives insisted that the focus should be on financing the status quo (see Strategies for Optimizing the Current System). The discussion on Financing Strategies was diluted by industry’s insistence that all conceivable options be considered, including those which have been shown to be inadequate (e.g., taxpayer-funded municipal recycling) and/or are politically or logistically not viable (e.g., federal funding for recycling infrastructure).

In spite of the fact that these same companies participate in take-back programs in Europe, Canada and other places around the world, most consumer goods companies balked at the notion of assuming responsibility for their packages after consumers are done with them. “We’re not in the garbage business,” was a frequently heard refrain.

However, these companies were not all on the same page. During the Dialogue, a consultant hired by Coca-Cola issued a report supporting EPR for packaging (although the report was never discussed in the meetings). An Estée Lauder company, Origins, has been operating a voluntary take-back program for its cosmetic packaging, and Estée Lauder publicly advocates for individual producer responsibility. It was also evident that retailers are evaluating the potential for increasing customer traffic and loyalty from take-back programs.

With other significant dialogues on EPR for packaging happening around the United States and the likelihood of state legislation forthcoming, the large product manufacturers and retailers are going to have to make a decision. Will they support EPR policies – which many of them comply with around the world – for the truly sustainable management of packaging? Or will they be on the wrong side of history and continue to fight for taxpayers to subsidize the massive amounts of packaging waste they create?

*************

The report is: Final Report of the Dialogue on Sustainable Financing of Recycling of Packaging at the Municipal Level (PDF) (128 pp, 872K). EPA will accept comments on this report until February 9, 2012 . The docket for this rulemaking is EPA-HQ-RCRA-2011-0912 and can be accessed at Regulations.gov.

Below are highlights excerpted from the 125-page report:
-- an overview of the major “work products” of the dialogue, and
-- three major topics that “illustrated divergence among stakeholders.”

“Work Products” [page 7 >]

“Participating stakeholders identified, examined and evaluated a total of eleven strategic options for financing recycling of packaging and printed material, and also proposed the advancement of eight distinct projects to optimize the current system. Together, these two work streams considered opportunities for enhancing the funding available to the system while reducing the cost of the system’s operation.”

“Strategies for Financing Recycling"
The assessments were intended to provide a balanced summary of participating perspectives regarding the advantages and disadvantages of each strategy, providing a strong foundation for leaders in the public, private and civic sectors to determine how best to address the challenge of financing recycling. The strategies are categorized by general source of funding: producers, consumers, rate-payers, and taxpayers.

• Producer-funded strategies
• Consumer-funded strategies
• Rate-payer funded strategies
• Taxpayer-funded strategies”

“Strategies for Optimizing the Current System
Eight potential projects were identified as strategies for improving the effectiveness and efficiency of the existing recycling system, to meet the characteristics of success that the group discussed. The projects evolved out of the mapping exercise through which participants identified challenges or areas for improvement at each phase of the system. Participants jointly developed a set of project briefs…”

Major Topics [page 4 > & 19 >]
“The major topics that generated discussion and illustrated divergence among stakeholders included:”

“Extended Producer Responsibility
Many participants would have preferred to focus largely or exclusively on certain financing strategies they believed to be most promising, especially extended producer responsibility (EPR). At least some stakeholders believe the dialogue missed a critical opportunity for productive deliberation and cross-sector learning by not pursuing deeper analysis of EPR.”

“Some participants, however, including most brand owner representatives, expressed strong discomfort with any explicit emphasis on EPR. A handful of stakeholders expressed the view that EPR was in fact too broad a subject given the need for meaningful and near-term action, and that a somewhat narrower but still reasonably holistic focus on sustainable waste management – i.e., end-of-life management of key materials – would be most productive. The chapter below on Financing Strategies provides more detail on the group’s deliberations and stakeholder perspectives regarding EPR and other strategic options. [page 20:]”

“Materials
Some participants believed that inclusion of printed paper in the scope of inquiry was inappropriate since relevant industry sectors (e.g., paper manufacturing, printing and publishing) were not represented at the table. Alternatively, a few participants preferred a focus on priority material types (e.g., aluminum, cardboard, steel) rather than all forms of packaging.”

“Dedicated focus on recycling
Some participating stakeholders – largely from industry – raised concerns about the focus on recycling and advocated for a more holistic assessment of end use options, hoping to explore how best to maximize the recovery of value (in financial and environmental terms) from the municipal solid waste stream. They preferred to be able to consider an integrated waste management approach including composting and waste-to-energy, determining the appropriate management strategy for each set of circumstances. Also, some participants from various sectors emphasized the need for source reduction and reuse to play a more significant role.”

“The purpose of the project was to solicit a range of stakeholder opinion and identify promising options rather than attempt to achieve agreement among participants. This report therefore does not represent consensus views but rather serves as a summary of deliberations, including findings and some jointly developed recommendations.” [bold in original]

These Are a Few of My Favorite Things: Suggestions for a Greener Holiday Season

By: Suzanna Baum, Membership Coordinator, Environmental Paper Network

Dec 2, 2011

With the holidays upon us, the choices we make to be environmentally conscious have more impact than usual.  We can make decisions to help reduce paper waste however, which will leave you and your loved ones feeling good about lessening your footprint this season.  Getting creative, purchasing recycled wrapping paper and cards, eliminating unwanted mail, and giving package-free gifts, will give you the room to boast that you're transforming the paper industry; a gift that Mother Earth and future generations will surely appreciate!

It's undeniable that wrapping (and unwrapping) gifts is a major part of the fun this time of year.  Some ideas that you can feel good about are ones that have been around for ages.  The good ol' brown paper packages tied up with string can usually stir up warm fuzzies, and re-used brown grocery bags work great.  How about the colorful comics section of the newspaper?  Or reusing materials around the house such as unused fabric from the sewing room, old maps, unused jars, or an old t-shirt that you never wear anymore? Ribbons wrapped around any of these make for a visual treat sure to be enjoyed under the tree.

Lacking the resources or time to be creative? Feel determined to use wrapping paper or send your highly anticipated cards?  There is always the option to purchase convenient, recycled products. There are many resources to help you find recycled materials for the holidays.  Conservatree, our featured EPN member this month, has put it all into a convenient chart for your viewing. Check it out here: Holiday Products Listing. Some other options: Twisted Limb Paperworks, My Good Greetings , Green Field Paper Company, Fish Lips Paper Designs, and Earth Love'n Paper Products. (Thanks to Greenline Paper for some tips)

All the paper waste doesn't necessarily come from our end at home though. I can recall a time when my mailbox was full of extra mail during the holidays with catalogs and special offers.  I was able to eliminate that wasteful burden all year round through a wonderful tool offered by one of EPN's members, Catalog Choice.  Get on board here: stop mail.

Aside from all of these options for paper conservation and recycling decisions, there is also the opportunity to donate gifts to your favorite non-profit, for yourself or on behalf of your gift-receivers.  Instead of adding more stuff to the planet, you're growing a cause that you and/or your loved ones believe in.  It's easy to donate to support the work of some of your favorite organizations in our Network here. 

I hope these suggestions help you to enjoy your green season this year.  Doing your part for the planet is a gift that will keep on giving. Happy Holidays!

About Our Guest Blogger
Suzanna Baum is Membership Coordinator for Environmental Paper Network.  She blogs each month highlighting different featured members of EPN.  You can find her blogs here.

Why Carpet Recycling Needs Product Stewardship Legislation

By Bill Sheehan, Executive Director, Product Policy Institute

Over the last few years, the need for carpet stewardship programs has become increasingly urgent.  State legislators are looking to manufacturers to help reduce the environmental and financial burdens of disposing vast quantities of carpet.  Made overwhelmingly from non-renewable petroleum, carpet is a major contributor to both landfills and climate change. 

 

In California alone, an estimated 1.3 million tons of carpet is disposed of in landfills annually, comprising 3.2 percent of all disposed solid waste in the state.  California ranks carpet as a top contributor to the state’s greenhouse gas emissions.  By the carpet industry’s own calculation, only 4.5% of the millions of tons sold nationally each year are recycled.

In September 2011, a year and a half of negotiations between carpet manufacturers, government regulators and other stakeholders broke down. The objective of the negotiations was to sign a 10-year Memorandum of Understanding to follow one that was expiring, signed in 2002.  The primary purpose of both MOUs was to set recycling and landfill diversion targets for carpet.  The 2002 MOU set a voluntary goal of 25% recycling by 2012. By 2010, after eight years of failed voluntary policies by the carpet industry, the recycling rate was essentially no higher than in 2002.  [The 2012 MOU Report on Negotiations and related documents are posted on Product Policy Institute’s Carpet web page.]

The 2012 MOU negotiations collapsed over the issue of sustainable financing for carpet recycling.  In 2010, California became the first state in the U.S. (and still the only one) to pass a producer responsibility law for carpet.  Due to political realities contributing to the bill’s likely passage, it was eventually supported by the Carpet and Rug Institute and the Carpet America Recovery Effort.  AB 2398 created a level playing field (all carpet makers selling into the state must participate), and a producer-based financing mechanism to build the infrastructure to recycle carpet.  The California Carpet Product Stewardship Program requires that all carpet sold in the state be subject to a fee of five cents per square yard.  The revenues from the fees are collected and used by carpet manufacturers to build recycling infrastructure and boost carpet recycling in the state. 

The effects of the law are already apparent.  Over the last year, collection and processing facilities in California grew from 4 to 18, spurring new economic development and creating new jobs.  Nationally, California’s carpet stewardship law is the only initiative driving investments in recycling, not to mention the jobs that come with it. 

Unfortunately, even though the implementation of California’s carpet stewardship law has been an early success, carpet manufacturers’ are opposed to any new state legislation. During the MOU negotiations they offered no alternatives to finance recycling.  In September, the Carpet and Rug Institute joined a new trade association, the Product Management Alliance, to oppose all producer responsibility legislation in the U.S. 

While all parties appeared to negotiate in good faith, and agreement was reached on several technical issues, the process revealed a fundamental disagreement about industry’s responsibility for life-cycle impacts of carpet, including when consumers are done with it.  Carpet industry negotiators never really accepted the idea that they should bear primary responsibility (with costs passed on to consumers), or that market forces should be harnessed by incorporating the cost of recycling in to carpet prices.  They spoke about carpet recycling as an added expense at a time the industry cannot afford it. 

Hardened by a decade of virtually no progress on the 25% recycling goal, state regulators and NGOs felt the second time around that voluntary goals without a financing mechanism are unlikely to be any more successful than the 2002 MOU. 

Carpet manufacturers proposed waiting three years to see how California progresses.  State regulators argued that postponing consideration of sustainable financing is not a sufficient basis on which to sign a new MOU.  California is not the only model, or even the best model.  For example, specifying fees in legislation lets carpet makers off the hook if the program fails to achieve desired results. The 25 state producer responsibility electronics laws adopted since 2003 have shown the value of legislative experimentation.  State regulators also understand that industry activity in California is unlikely to benefit other states.

In the 2012 legislative session, at least two state carpet bills will be in play: in Washington State, SB 5110 introduced by Senator Jeanne Kohl-Welles; and in New York, AB 492 introduced by Assemblymember Brian Kavanagh. 

Without more state legislation that creates a level playing field and requires all carpet makers to finance recycling infrastructure by incorporating the cost in the price of carpet, it is highly unlikely that significant investments will be made to back up any recycling goals.  If that’s the case, we’ll have another “lost decade” with most used carpet in America wasted in landfills and incinerators, instead of being reclaimed and remade into valuable new products.  Gone too, will be the many new jobs that could have been created in collection, processing and manufacturing. 

What we're thankful for...

In addition to being grateful for our friends and family and all the good things in life, here are a few things that Product Policy Institute is thankful for this year:

·        That EPR and policies to boost recycling can create 1.5 million American jobs.

 

·        That legislators across the country are getting excited about the economic development potential of product stewardship.

·        That Annie Leonard reminded us that there is enough money and ideas out there to build a truly sustainable economy.

·        That big corporations are starting to support extended producer responsibility policies and cradle to cradle design.

·        That people like you continue to support PPI’s efforts to mitigate the social and environmental impacts of consumer products, and build an economy that supports people and the planet.

From our staff, board and volunteers at the Product Policy Institute, we want to wish you and your families a very happy Thanksgiving.