Fee modulation is where EPR programmes get hard
A mid-Atlantic state's draft producer responsibility rules would vary fees by recyclability, and packaging producers are split on whether the bonus-malus spread is wide enough to change design.
Draft rules circulated for comment under a mid-Atlantic state’s extended producer responsibility programme would apply modulated fees to packaging based on recyclability criteria, and the size of the spread between the lowest and highest rate has emerged as the central dispute among affected producers.
Under the draft, packaging would be assigned to one of four bands. Formats with established collection, sortation and end-market pathways would sit in the lowest-cost band; formats that are collected but routinely lost in sortation would sit a band higher; formats that disrupt sortation or contaminate other streams would carry a penalty rate.
The spread is the policy
Producer representatives are divided along predictable lines. Companies whose portfolios skew toward mono-material formats with functioning end markets have argued for a wide spread, on the grounds that a narrow one produces revenue without behaviour change.
“If the difference between my best package and my worst package is a rounding error on a unit cost, I will pay the fee and keep the package,” said Ingrid Mbeki, packaging sustainability lead at Larkspur Consumer Brands. “You have built a tax, not an incentive.”
Producers with more multilayer and barrier-dependent formats have argued the opposite — that a wide spread penalises categories where no drop-in alternative exists at any price, particularly in food applications with shelf-life and safety constraints.
Methodology fights are coming
The second contested area is how recyclability gets determined. The draft would rely on a technical assessment of whether a format is collected, sorted and reprocessed at scale within the programme’s own geography, rather than on theoretical recyclability or on availability of a pathway anywhere in the world.
Recyclers have broadly supported that framing. Several processors said it is the only definition that reflects what actually arrives at a facility.
“Theoretical recyclability is what puts material on my residue line,” said Ines Marchetti of Corvid Materials. “If nothing in this state can sort it, it is not recyclable in this state, whatever the resin code says.”
Producers have raised the practical objection that a jurisdiction-specific standard fragments compliance if neighbouring programmes adopt different assessments, forcing either state-specific packaging or design to the strictest common denominator.
Timing and what comes next
The comment window runs through the late summer, with a producer responsibility organisation expected to be designated before fee schedules are finalised. Programme officials have signalled that initial fees are likely to be set conservatively, with modulation widening over subsequent cycles once baseline data on collected volumes and sortation outcomes exists.
That sequencing is common and it has a predictable consequence: the first cycle raises money and changes little. Whether the programme eventually moves package design depends almost entirely on whether the spread widens on schedule, or whether it gets negotiated flat every time it comes up for review.
