Producer Responsibility for Packaging … What is it? A policy whose time has come?

It seems everywhere we turn, there is packaging. As consumers, we often have little choice about how our products are packaged and that packaging makes up about 28% of our waste nationally.

This year, the Maryland General Assembly is considering legislation to incentivize producers of packaging to reduce the volume and increase the recyclability of that packaging. Less packaging waste means less trash and strengthening recycling systems reduces waste volumes.

How would this work? Producers form their own non-profit groups who work together to meet the requirements. They set up a hierarchy which favors less packaging and more recyclability, put all that into a plan with financial incentives for meeting plan goals and submit it to the State for approval. This system allows those with the expertise — the designers and producers of packaging — to figure out how to make it better. An advisory group of stakeholders reviews the plan too, to provide other important perspectives. Maryland’s proposal, significantly, also enables our local governments, who implement the bulk of recycling in Maryland, to apply for reimbursement for some of their costs of handling that packaging. This system — producer responsibility — already exists in Maryland for a few items like batteries and electronics. Oregon and Maine recently adopted versions of this approach and several other states are looking at it this year. In Canada and Europe, programs like this have been in place, in some cases, for ten years or more.

At Trash Free Maryland, we are always looking for new policies to help us reach our goal. If you want to know more or talk this through, please reach out. We do think this is an idea whose time has come!