Resource Recycling

EPR fees are a market signal. Here’s what they’re telling you.

For years, packaging decisions in the United States were made based on commodity costs and on-shelf visibility, ignoring end-of-life costs entirely. Most producers still do not know the true cost of their packaging to the system. Extended producer responsibility (EPR) fees will tell them, and for some packaging categories, the number is not small.

Having worked inside one of the world’s largest consumer goods companies and as an early team member of the organization that is now setting EPR fees across multiple states, I have watched these two worlds operate in parallel for years. That gap is closing faster than most corporate packaging teams realize. 

Companies currently building their 2028 packaging roadmaps are making decisions that will determine their EPR cost structure when full multi-state programs are live. California’s 2032 deadline requiring all packaging sold into the state to be recyclable or compostable is only four to six planning cycles away, depending on your company’s innovation cadence.