Extended producer responsibility
Also known as EPR, extended producer responsibility legislation has cropped up across the US, with laws passed and signed in Maine and Oregon in 2021 and California and Colorado this year.
Felton said, while this type of regulation is new in the US, the packaging supply chain internationally has been working with EPR regulations for about 30 years and companies selling in the EU or Canada are already familiar with the process.
Essentially, Felton said EPR regulation transfers the burden of responsibility for recycling and recovery from consumers and municipal governments to the packaging supply chain.
That can mean the transfer of recycling operations, but more often companies have to join a producer responsibility organization, PRO, to which it will pay fees. Felton said in many PROs, a company can reduce fees based on the packaging type it uses, like higher recycled-content packaging.
“In the beauty industry, some of the packaging is hard to recycle today,” Felton said. “It doesn't enjoy the recovery system as, for instance, beverage containers. One potentially good thing about these new programs coming online is they may be able to help increase the infrastructure for those harder to recycle materials, including for the beauty industry.”
Ameripen is supportive of EPR legislation which aligns with its vision, Felton said. He also noted that none of the EPR regulations passed in the US has been implemented yet.