Editor’s note: This roundup story overlooks a recycling-content bill in New Jersey that is attracting a lot of attention from recyclers, product manufacturers and environmentalists. Sponsored by Senate Environment and Energy Chairman Bob Smith, S-2515 was recently sent back to the legislative drawing board for no fewer than 28 amendments. The revised version (not yet publicly available) is expected to more closely model California’s recycled content law. Sponsor Smith says the bill will be handled in committee in December.

By E.A. Crunden, Waste Dive

• Momentum behind extended producer responsibility (EPR) laws for packaging is growing in multiple states, per comments at this year’s virtual Northeast Recycling Coalition conference. Officials and EPR proponents from Maine, Massachusetts, New York, Vermont, Connecticut and Rhode Island all spoke to increasing interest. 
  
• Several cited Maine’s bill (LD 2104), in limbo due to the pandemic, as a policy blueprint. Massachusetts and New York have considered bills recently, while Connecticut Department of Energy & Environmental Protection (DEEP) Environmental Analyst Tom Metzner said his state is busy seeking buy-in from municipalities.
  
• Motivating factors include pandemic-induced budget cuts facing local governments, with state attention driving more business engagement. “The industry is coming around” on EPR, said Metzner, adding “I think the states are getting weary of this manufacturer position that ‘no it doesn’t really work,’ or ‘let’s keep talking.'”

Viewpoints around EPR legislation are evolving during an unprecedented year that has upended many state legislative sessions. Actual progress on bills has been limited — in addition to Maine’s stalled effort, California did not pass its legislation for the second year in a row. But the waste industry has increasingly discussed EPR as a possibility it may have to contend with based on state trends.

“In some regions, recycling costs have eclipsed disposal costs,” said Josh Kelly, materials management section chief for the Vermont Agency of Natural Resources, adding “EPR programs are shifting that dynamic of who pays.”

Vermont, Washington and Oregon are among states that have recently considered EPR, although in past years such legislation has failed to gain traction in states like Connecticut and Rhode Island due to a lack of producer involvement and other stumbling blocks. DEEP’s Metzner said his state remains “very interested” in packaging EPR and sees municipalities as a good potential ally. 

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