NERC Blog

Today's guest blog is authored by Jon Smieja of the GreenBiz Group. The original post can be read here.

3M made news in December, announcing it will end the manufacture of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (a.k.a. PFAS) by the end of 2025. For those of us who have been concerned about toxic chemistries common in everyday products, this is great news, even if decades late.

PFAS, commonly referred to as "forever chemicals" due to their stability in the environment, have long been under fire from environmentalists and human health advocates due to their potential for toxicity. Sustainability professionals and leading companies have been working toward elimination of these chemicals from products ranging from fast food wrappers to building products for more than a decade. The connection between 3M and PFAS has long been an issue here in my home state of Minnesota, where elevated levels of the…

From August 2022, a Recycling Partnership blog authored by Senior Policy Advisor Michael Washburn. The original post can be read here.

The U.S. recycling system is not one unified entity – it is a network of 9,000 separate local recycling programs. Recycling access, infrastructure and education have been underfunded for far too long, leaving many U.S. residents, more than 40 million, without convenient access to recycling. Better access, infrastructure, and education is required for an effective and efficient system. We need smart, well-designed policy to improve the U.S. residential recycling system, to get it working efficiently, and provide sustainable funding for the system so that it can continue to improve in the future.

Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) legislation is a policy approach with far-reaching effects, including incentives to make packages sold on store shelves more recyclable, informing Americans about what…

Today's guest blog is authored by Jon Smieja of the GreenBiz Group. The original post can be read here.

According to Pew and SystemIQ, plastic flows into the ocean are expected to triple by 2040. Immediate action, though, could stem the tide by more than 80 percent.

That’s why when nearly 200 countries agreed to work toward a treaty to end the plastic pollution crisis in March, the circularity community cheered. That cheering, of course, was tempered by the fact that there is a long way to go and likely a lot of compromises to be made. Fortunately for all of us waiting, the International Negotiating Committee (INC)…

Today's guest blog is authored by Sonja Williams of RecyclingWorks in Massachusetts. The original post can be read here.

There’s a reason reduce is the first R in 'Reduce, Reuse, Recycle.'

Today's guest blog is courtesy of NAPCOR. The original post can be read here.

As NAPCOR continues to make progress in proactively shaping the narrative about PET on one front, we also take a strong defensive stand against stories that clearly don’t get it right.

Unfortunately, we find ourselves in this position all too frequently. Memorably, last November the Washington Post ran the story of Alaska Airlines’ switch to boxed water. The decision was based on a deeply flawed LCA study that was not compliant with ISO standards and tailored to produce a specific desired outcome. In situations like this—when all plastics are treated alike in the media, or when the positive attributes of an alternative packaging material are exaggerated—PET takes more of an indirect hit. In the case of Alaska Airlines, we responded with truths outlined in

Today's guest blog is authored by NERC board member Chaz Miller. The original post can be read here.

Circular Claims Fall Flat Again is Greenpeace’s latest assault on plastic recycling. Not only does Greenpeace say it is failing now, they confidently predict it will always be a failure. Instead, we should phase out all single-use plastics and shoot for “at least 50 percent reusable packaging by 2030.” Greenpeace came to bury plastic recycling, not to praise it.

NextCycle's programs centered community voices from the beginning.

Today's guest blog is authored by Suz Okie of GreenBiz Group. The original post can be read here.

Back in 2016, my grandmother’s charming, but outdated 1941-built home was being torn down. Making way for the modern trappings of new construction, its demolition — while distressing to my family — was not an uncommon fate.

Hundreds of thousands of homes in the U.S. are demolished each year, and building demolition accounts for more than 90 percent of the 600 million tons of construction-related waste generated in the country each year — a volume projected to balloon to 2.2 billion tons globally by 2025.

Considering my profession, it won’t shock you that I found discarding the materials that comprised my grandmother’s house — my mother’s childhood home — unappealing.…

Today's guest blog is authored by Suz Okie of GreenBiz Group. The original post can be read here.

When it comes to reusables, I’m a fanatic, an enthusiast, a fan — insert any number of zealous descriptors and you wouldn’t be far off.

That’s in part because my journey to circular economy analyst began with a reusables obsession — following a graduate school commitment to stop buying single-use packaging (a goal I, admittedly, often fell short on), finding innovative reusable solutions became a personal addiction.

Reusables offered a tangible step towards the waste-free world I hankered for. In the food service industry alone, leveraging reuse could avoid 841 billion disposable packages annually, equating to 7.5 million tons of trash diverted. In fact, when comparing serviceware options,