To Build a Broader Coalition for EPR in the U.S. Advocates Need to Abandon Some Cherished Ideas, Part 1

October 21, 2014

Today’s Guest Blog article is by Dick Lilly. It originally appeared in UPSTREAM on September 29, 2014.

The most significant impediment to expanding EPR in the United States today is its narrow, limited constituency. Advocates are hard to find outside of the various states’ product stewardship councils – a specialized subset of environmental activists with negligible influence on the rest of the environmental community – and a few national advocacy organizations.

Other than a handful of industries and individual businesses willing to promote stewardship laws, EPR advocates have no allies against a broadly hostile corporate world, businesses happy to have governments pick up the tab for end-of-life costs and environmental impacts. Until EPR develops a broader political base, it won’t be the force needed to grow recycling – in volume and variety of materials – seen in parts of Europe and Canada.

There’s a reason for this. Early on, advocates thought of EPR as an “environmental management strategy;” most still do. Sadly, though, that formulation led more or less directly to the conclusion that waste management companies and their partners in crime, local governments, were such a part of the problem that it was fine for this new system, EPR, to push them aside. The producers would take over financing and management of recycling.

Though admittedly many of the haulers and lots of cities have not been on the side of the angels when it comes to the environment, this view has alienated many local governments and the waste management industry. Most of the latter are at best skeptical and at worst already strong opponents of EPR laws. This lack of allies is probably the biggest single obstacle to the expansion of EPR in the U.S. from a few (though very important!) hazardous and hard-to-handle materials to packaging and, possibly, printed paper.

To move ahead, EPR advocates need to rethink the role of local governments and the waste management industry.  Thankfully, this process is already underway. UPSTREAM has opened discussions including cities and counties to talk about what local governments need to see in EPR in order to support state laws for packaging product stewardship, the area of EPR that impacts – depends on – robust curbside collection programs.

What’s needed, then, to bring local governments and waste management companies over to the side of EPR, to make them allies instead of opponents? Here are a number of possibilities:

Starting with the basics, look at some of the philosophical baggage EPR carries. Advocates needn’t abandon the principle that producers are responsible for the whole life cycle of their products – that EPR is to leverage changes in manufacturing processes, materials used and reduce resource consumption. But that’s not where local governments and the waste industry are coming from. Their business is end-of-life materials management, recovery and sale of materials for reintroduction into manufacturing processes and still, as needed, disposal. To get on the same page with these potential allies, advocates need to approach EPR as a “materials management strategy.” Approached this way, it’s hard to avoid the conclusion that waste management companies and the local governments they often work for need to be part of the solution, that they are, in fact, the key players.

Another change in thinking supports this. EPR is talked of as a “producer pays” system. It is not. EPR costs producers exactly nothing. The purchaser/user bears all the cost, whether internalized in the price of the product or added as an “environmental handling charge” at time of purchase. In reality, the producer’s, or wholesaler’s, or retailer’s only role is to remit money collected from purchasers at the cash register to whatever third party organization manages the EPR recycling program(s). If that’s all producers really do – pass money through from consumers to recycling services (and it is) – then producers aren’t bearing any burden, cost or otherwise, that entitles them to manage recycling programs, or, for that matter, dictate what’s proper to pay for those programs.

Seen that way, EPR programs need not – and probably should not – grant producers alone the power to create stewardship organizations or manage them. So far, doing that has played a major role in turning local governments and waste management companies against EPR. They’ve had no say and producers, most notably in British Columbia, have been given monopoly or near-monopoly powers.

Part Two of this article will appear in the NERC Blog next week.

Dick Lilly is Manager for Waste Prevention and Product Stewardship for Seattle Public Utilities and the city’s representative on the Northwest Product Stewardship Council’s Steering Committee. However, the views expressed here are his own and do not represent policies advocated by Seattle Public Utilities or the NWPSC.

NERC welcomes Guest Blog submissions. To inquire about submitting articles contact Athena Lee Bradley, Projects Manager. Disclaimer: Guest blogs represent the opinion of the writers and may not reflect the policy or position of the Northeast Recycling Council, Inc.