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EPR bill considered toughest in nation

Companies would reduce packaging by 50%

Two plastic packaging bills were recently introduced in New York state that, if passed, would raise the supply of recycled plastics, reduce waste and incentivize companies to use more sustainable packaging.

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Both bills, which include the Extended Producer Responsibility (Assembly Bill A10185) and the Bigger Better Bottle Bill (AB A10184), were introduced by Assemblyman Steve Englebright May 5.

The first bill, AB A10185, would establish an extended producer responsibility, or EPR, program, which aims to increase collection rates and in turn the supply of recycled materials, by shifting some packaging end-of-life management burdens from consumers and governments to industry.

"The EPR bill puts the responsibility from cradle to grave on manufacturers as they will take responsibility for the eventual recycling or reuse" of packaging, Englebright said at a May 10 press conference. "[Plastic packaging] goes out the door of the manufacturing facility, and they never think about it again. But we ... have higher taxes and compromised health."

Key features of the bill include requiring companies to gradually reduce their packaging by 50% over 10 years through more sustainable packaging design, switching to reuse/refill systems, and/or eliminating excess packaging altogether

Companies would also be required to transition 90% of their remaining packaging over 12 years to be recyclable, compostable or made from recycled content. In all new packaging, certain materials will be banned, including PFAS, heavy metals, and non-recyclable plastics such as PVC and polystyrene.

Also, packaging producers would be required to pay fees to the program, which will be determined via a structure that provides incentives to producers that seek to reduce waste at the source and adopt more sustainable packaging designs and practices. Charges will also be adjusted based on the percentage of post-consumer content, which producers will be required to specify on packaging products.

The bill specifies that the definition of post-consumer resin should not include any material sourced from energy recovery or "generated by means of combustion, incineration, pyrolysis, gasification, solvolysis, chemical recycling and any high-heat or chemical conversion process."

"We need real solutions today to hold producers responsible for the life cycle management of their products, improve and increase recycling, support municipalities, reduce waste and plastics, close the door on false 'chemical recycling' solutions, and eliminate toxic chemicals," Kate Kurera, deputy director of Environmental Advocates of New York, said during the press conference.

New York to update 40-year-old bottle bill

The second bill, the Bigger Better Bottle Bill (AB A10184), would expand New York's container deposit law to include non-carbonated beverages, wine and liquor containers. It would also raise the deposit fee -- the amount returned to the consumer for depositing used containers -- from 5 to 10 cents.

Though Englebright said New York's 40-year-old deposit system has been "tremendously successful," he believes increasing the return fee will further raise the state's container redemption rate, which was estimated to be 64% in 2020, and in turn, increase the supply of recyclables moving through the system.

Container deposit programs have been adopted in 10 US states, otherwise known as bottle bill states. These states -- California, Connecticut, Hawaii, Iowa, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, New York, Oregon and Vermont -- have much higher redemption rates than non-bottle bill states, as well as lower amounts of contaminants in their deposit materials.

Deposit material, especially PET bottle bales -- the feedstock for recycled PET pellets -- is usually priced at a premium, typically 10-15 cents/lb, to its curbside counterpart. For example, S&P Global Commodity Insights assessed post-consumer deposit bales in the California spot market May 10 at 42 cents/lb and curbside bales at 33 cents/lb.

As more brand owners pledge to incorporate recycled content in their packaging and more state governments mandate it, improving redemption rates state by state is the first step to bridging the market's wide supply-demand gap.

"New York policymakers have done very little in the past few years to address the growing problem of solid waste," NYPIRG campaign organizer Ryan Thoresen Carson said. "Luckily, there is a tried-and-true method, now introduced in the State Assembly, to reduce local governments' solid waste burden -- modernizing the Bottle Bill."

Other states likely to follow

New York is one of roughly 15 states, mostly on the West Coast or in the Northeast, that have introduced EPR legislation as of early this year. Maine and Oregon were the only two states to see such legislation pass both their upper and lower chambers in 2021.

If signed into the law, the New York EPR measure will be one of the toughest US packaging reduction bills and could lead other states to follow suit.

Most recently, on May 6, an EPR bill in Colorado, HB22-1355, passed a Senate committee. The bill mandates that companies that sell packaging materials and paper products in the state join a producer responsibility organization.

"It is likely that more EPR bills will pass in the future due to the fact that legislatures are developing a deeper understanding of how EPR benefits their constituents and that it will become easier for future states to use existing EPR legislation as the basis for their own state," a market source said.

Proponents believe EPR legislation is crucial in providing infrastructure to increase recycling rates and, in turn, PCR supply, the same source added. However, because EPR legislation varies so much from state to state, participants have expressed concerns that compliance will become overly burdensome on producers or end-of-life costs will be absorbed by consumers.

Englebright said both New York bills have a "very good chance of passage" as he believes there is still enough time to reconcile differences between the various forms of these bills across state legislatures.

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