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.
