What is EPR ?
Why does it matter?
Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR)
Extended producer responsibility (EPR) is the concept of shifting the funding mechanism for dealing with waste away from local governments and onto the companies that produce and sell the package. The World Wildlife Fund did a good description back in 2021.
EPR has existed for years in the paint, mattress, battery and other industries.
The Oregon legislature passed the Recycling Modernization Act (Senate Bill 582) and Maine passed the Stewardship Packaging legislation during the 2021 legislative session. At that point, EPR caught wind in its sail with the passage of 2 more EPR legislations in June of 2023: Colorado and California’s EPR programs passed. Minnesota passed their EPR in 2024. We shall see what 2025 brings.
Why does EPR matter?
Companies are making commitments to increase recycling and to increase the use of recycled material. As You Sow put out a 2024 Plastics Promises Scorecard. 100 of the 225 companies evaluated have a plastics reduction goal and 145 have goals to increase the use of recycled material. Those looking to buy recycled material to put back in packaging find that there is not enough material out there for the demand.
Insert Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR). It appears to be the only proven way to reliably increase recycling rates while simultaneously increasing the quality of the material collected. With an increase in quality, comes an increase in a responsible end market for the material.
While only 1 EPR legislation passed in 2024, there were 4 other states who proposed legislation and there as a senate hearing on EPR where the possibility of a national EPR was discussed. 12 states have active EPR legislation so far in 2025.
Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) is here. Your company needs to prepare. If you do it well, you can turn the pending recycling infrastructure changes into a business benefit. Let CSY Impact consulting help you approach EPR with a strategy.
FAQs
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Producer Responsibility Organization (PRO) or a Stewardship Organization (SO) is the official term used in the statutes passed to date.
Circular Action Alliance (CAA) is the approved PRO in Colorado, California, and likely to be selected in Mid-February 2025 in Oregon.
CSY Impact Consultant’s founder Christine Yeager was one of the early team members at CAA to establish strategy, communications, processes, and technology to support producer services at CAA.
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It’s hard to have a crystal ball, but it does seem that EPR has momentum in the US and has been successful in the EU at improving recycling rates. 12 states have active legislation this year.
Sustainable Packaging Coalition has an active EPR tracker that you can reference. https://epr.sustainablepackaging.org/policies
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The first reporting deadline in the US is March 31, 2025 for paper and packaging sold in Oregon.
Each state has a unique set of covered materials. Circular Action Alliance (CAA) is working to harmonize, but that won’t likely happen until all state’s have finalized their list of covered and/or reporting materials. CAA will do what they can in the interim, but some of it is out of their hands. What can you do now?
First: Begin mapping your SKUs to the covered materials:
Oregon Covered materials are in the latest Program Plan 3 submitted in December on page 190+
a draft of Colorado Covered materials was shared as part of the program plan submitted in early February
Second: Companies can use Oregon’s latest Program Plan to estimate fees expected in Oregon. While the program plan for Oregon has been approved, the fee schedule will not be final until producer supply data has been submitted and analyzed. Colorado uses the term “Dues” to describe their fees and a high-low scenario was included in the latest program plan shared with Colorado Department of Public Health.
A company could use these 2 fee schedules as a proxy to estimate fees in other states. However the program costs for each state will be unique and therefore this data should only be used as a high-level estimate.
Third: Take stock in the overall impact of your packaging against the market. This can be in the form of an LCA. This will allow you to begin to see how much potential benefit you can or will eventually gain from packaging changes.
Finally: Begin innovation planning to increase easily recyclable materials, recycled material used in your products and decrease use of hard to recycle materials.
Contact us at CSY Impact Consulting if you’d like help with EPR compliance