Corporate Responsibility for Waste Reduction Insufficient

April 14, 2015

Today’s Guest Blog is by Robert Kropp, a Vermont-based freelance journalist. It was originally posted in SocialFunds.com on February 11, 2015.

While an estimated $11.4 billion in potential recycling revenue is wasted in the US every year, recycling rates in Europe and elsewhere are considerably higher. Waste and Opportunity 2015, a new report from As You Sow and the Natural Resources Defense Council, notes that the lack of producer responsibility laws or equivalent policies is a contributing factor.

“Businesses that place substantial amounts of packaging on the US market...have used their public policy departments to fight any notion that they should take financial responsibility for recycling materials in the United States,” the report states, “even though they do so in many other countries.”

The report studies the packaging practices of three of the industry sectors most responsible for plastic packaging, the recycling rate of which is less than 14% in the US. The focus of the report is on fast food restaurants, beverage companies, and the consumer goods/grocery sector, “because of the substantial waste associated with a business model in which food is most often taken off-premises in single-use containers.”

Forty-seven companies were analyzed; “none,” the report found, “are doing enough to make their packaging more sustainable.” An analysis of street litter in four Bay Area cities found that half was from fast food restaurants; Starbucks is the only company in the sector to have committed to front of house recycling. In the beverage sector, the use of non-recyclable packaging of children's drinks, such as Capri Sun from Kraft, is on the increase; furthermore, “most brands support neither a container deposit nor an EPR (extended producer responsibility) scheme to boost recycling.”

And in the consumer packaged goods and grocery sector, “Use of flexible packaging is growing swiftly, with no apparent strategy by companies that produce it or brands that use it to make it recyclable.”

An appendix to the 62-page report, containing comments from the companies themselves, proves illuminating. Despite the fact that most of the companies already comply with EPR regulations in Europe and elsewhere—which certainly contribute to markedly higher recycling rates—only two companies quoted in the report--Nestle Waters and New Belgium Brewing--indicated support for such regulations in the US. Seeking a market based solution instead, a consortium of major companies launched the Closed Loop Fund, a program which plans initial investments amounting to $100 million that will be distributed to municipalities in the form of zero-interest and low-interest loans.

The consortium anticipates that by 2025, their initial $100 million investment could lead to:

• A reduction of more than 75 million tons of greenhouse gas emissions;
• the diversion of 27 million cumulative tons of waste from landfills;
  27,000 new local jobs;
• municipal savings of more than $1.9 billion in waste disposal costs; and
• greater access by packaged goods companies to recycled materials.

But as Matt Prindiville of Upstream wrote, “the amounts of corporate money in these 'public-private partnerships' are insignificant when compared to the amounts of money that taxpayers and ratepayers pay to clean up after them.”

“The QSR (quick service restaurant), beverage, and consumer packaged goods (CPG) sectors need to increase engagement on the recycling of postconsumer packaging,” the report concludes. “They must become actively involved in developing a consensus on new, state-level producer responsibility mandates or equivalent policies that will spread a measure of responsibility fairly among brands placing materials on the market; this will result in significant increases in container and packaging recycling rates.”

Also, “A government agency or multilateral stakeholder group with buy-in from the business and environmental communities needs to develop a blueprint for—and credible estimate of the total cost of—boosting U.S. recycling rates to 75 percent or beyond.”

“These companies have not sufficiently prioritized packaging source reduction, recyclability, compostability, recycled content, and recycling policies” report author Conrad MacKerron of As You Sow said. “Increased attention to these key attributes of packaging sustainability would result in more efficient utilization of postconsumer packaging, higher US recycling rates, reduced ocean plastic pollution, and new green recycling jobs.”

In its ongoing effort to create a circular economy, the European Commission announced last year a ban on all recyclables in landfills by 2025. In the US, where regulatory regimes are often resisted, market based solutions such as the Closed Loop Fund seek to accomplish similar ends, but on a voluntary basis. The goals of the Fund may turn out to be modest when compared to the enormity of the problem of low recycling rates in the US, and may do little to address corporate externalization of social and environmental costs. But in the absence of regulation, the Fund and other industry initiatives may represent initial steps towards increasing recycling rates in the US.

Robert Kropp is a Vermont-based freelance journalist whose writings on sustainability and corporate responsibility can be read at www.SocialFunds.com. He is also NERC’s bookkeeper.

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.