Manufacturers must take a stewardship approach to packaging

I read with great interest a recent News Tribune editorial on excessive packaging (12-28). The Northwest Product Stewardship Council (NWPSC) has been exploring ways to increase the recycling of packaging for several years.

The NWPSC is a coalition of government organizations in Washington and Oregon working to shift our product waste management system from one focused on government-funded and ratepayer-financed recycling and waste disposal system to one that relies on producer responsibility.

This will reduce public costs, increase accessibility to services, attain greater environmental benefits and drive improvements in product design that promote environmental sustainability.

According to the state Department of Ecology, more than 2.3 million tons of packaging and printed paper is generated in the state each year, representing 28 percent of the total solid waste generated within the state annually. Only 15 percent of plastic packaging is recycled.

The reasons for the low recycling rates for plastic packaging include:

 • Types of plastic packaging being used are increasing rapidly. New materials such as bio-plastics, packaging made with mixed-plastic resins and other combinations of materials make them difficult to recycle.

 • Plastic packaging materials are often created by companies with little or no consideration for recycling. Many plastic packaging containers are not recyclable in standard curbside recycling programs.

 • Local governments, with assistance from state grants, have been the primary funders of local recycling programs since their inception in the 1980s. Governments are now experiencing significant budget challenges. There is increasing resistance to raising rates to cover costs of recycling for difficult-to-recycle plastic packaging materials.

However, if we could increase the recycling of packaging in Washington to levels currently being achieved in Canada and Europe, the state would create an additional 2,000 jobs; reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 467,000 metric tons of carbon equivalent (equal to removing 314,000 passenger cars from the road each year); and generate an additional $48 million of recyclable commodity value to Washington residents, recycling businesses, waste management companies and municipalities.

Instead of going to the landfill, this additional material would be available for use as feedstock in manufacturing processes, reducing reliance on valuable natural resources.

As the editorial stated, “Europe has gotten serious about this insanity. The European Union aggressively recycles packaging.”

So how do they do it? The European Union countries and many provinces in Canada use a “product stewardship” approach for managing packaging.

In a product stewardship system, the companies that generate the packaging materials pay into a fund to have the materials collected, sorted and processed for recycling. The fees they pay into the system are based on quantity and recyclability of the packaging materials they use. This system provides direct economic feedback to the packaging producers and users.

We lack this feedback loop here in the United States. The designers and users of packaging have no financial responsibility for what happens after it leaves the store. Therefore, we have seen only those changes to packaging that save companies money.

Examples include “light-weighting” of packaging such as the switch to plastic from glass and use of thinner aluminum cans. We have also seen redesign of packaging to allow more product per pallet or container or truckload. These are good and reasonable first steps but do not go far enough.

The NWPSC recently published a paper, “Analyzing Product Stewardship Policies for Packaging and Printed Paper in Washington State,” that provides information on how product stewardship approaches elsewhere have increased recycling – and recyclability – of packaging and printed paper. It can be downloaded at productstewardship.net.

To become more involved in efforts to support product stewardship, businesses and organizations can also sign up to become members of the NWPSC Associates Program at www.productstewardship.net/join.html .

Bill Smith of Lakewood is chairman of the packaging subcommittee with the Northwest Product Stewardship Council, a coalition of government organizations in Washington and Oregon.