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摘要

The 2021 Plastics Recycling Conference, held online in early April, featured eight sessions over two days. Here are some of the talking points that caught our team's attention. Three speakers outlined efforts in Maine, New York and California to implement packaging EPR during an April 7 session. Extended producer responsibility (EPR) policies make packaging producers responsible for the funding and management of the collection and recycling of end-of-life materials. Maine state Rep. Nicole Grohoski said a bill she's supporting will help boost recycling rates, reduce costs for municipalities and ratepayers, and drive improvements in packaging design. Her state's bill will include an eco-modulation concept, through which producers pay lower fees for selling packaging that is easier to recycle, less toxic, includes more PCR and has better instructions to the consumer for recycling. The Maine bill is still in the final drafting stage, but Grohoski expects it to be introduced very soon. In New York, Sen. Todd Kaminsky, chair of the Senate's Environmental Conservation Committee, has made an EPR bill his No. 1 priority this session, he said. The goal is to boost recycling rates and increase the use of recycled materials, while also reducing municipalities' costs, so they can lower taxes or invest in other needed projects they may not have been able to afford (his town on Long Island has a 100-year-old water tower in need of replacing, for example, he said).