Two payments earlier than the Legislature intention to extend Washington’s stagnant recycling progress. Regardless of important efforts by native governments to spice up recycling applications over time, solely 40% of all packaging and paper is recycled in Washington. By any measure, that’s not the mark of a “strong” system. To make issues worse, cities and residents are paying for this more and more costly service.
Just one invoice, House Bill 2049, or the ReWRAP Act, addresses the important thing subject undermining native governments’ greatest efforts to enhance our recycling price — the dearth of duty on the a part of firms that make packaging and paper merchandise. Requiring firms that create and distribute packaging to pay for processing the waste they produce is named prolonged producer duty, and is nothing new. Western Europe has had EPR for packaging for many years; our neighbor to the north, British Columbia, also has EPR for packaging — paid for by the identical firms that promote the merchandise lining your fridge and pantries. Shouldn’t they be held accountable within the U.S. as effectively? State legislators in California, Colorado, Maine and Oregon thought so and handed legal guidelines round EPR for packaging within the final two years.
The other bill being considered this session, HB 1900, units a nonbinding recycling objective of 60% for client packaging and paper. However not like HB 2049, it received’t improve entry to recycling and it received’t maintain producers accountable for the prices of managing their packaging waste. In brief, it’s simply extra of the identical.
We perceive that the EPR strategy is a giant change for our state. However we are able to’t count on a unique consequence by doing the identical issues we’ve all the time finished. Our expertise with the state’s present 50% recycling objective is that we are able to’t meet it with out making actual adjustments to how recycling applications are organized and funded. A examine commissioned by the Legislature final 12 months discovered that the kinds of insurance policies included in HB 1900 — reality in labeling, statewide assortment checklist, and recycled content material necessities — would improve the recycling price in our state by only one%. In distinction, combining these insurance policies with EPR is estimated to extend recycling in Washington by 26%. That’s why the ReWRAP Act contains these insurance policies together with EPR.
The truth is, EPR is acknowledged as a central coverage software for funding and enhancing recycling by the United Nations and the 170 nations engaged in negotiations on a worldwide treaty to curb plastic air pollution.
Proponents of HB 1900 recommend {that a} examine must be finished first earlier than placing producers on the hook for paying to assist the recycling of their merchandise. However we don’t want one other examine to level us in the best path — each state examine in recent times factors to EPR for packaging as the answer to modernize our recycling system and obtain the best greenhouse-gas emissions reductions. The general public agrees: 72% of survey respondents agree that producers ought to take duty for his or her packaging. The ReWRAP Act requires an in depth wants evaluation and permits 5 years earlier than the coverage goes into impact to permit for sufficient preparation.
We ask the Legislature to assist a significant strategy to recycling reform this session quite than proceed to kick the can down the street.