Producers, recyclers and the public have another chance to comment on California’s SB 54 extended producer responsibility for packaging permanent regulations.
Producers, recyclers and the public have another chance to comment on California’s SB 54 extended producer responsibility for packaging permanent regulations.
This article appeared in the October 2024 issue of Resource Recycling. Subscribe today for access to all print content.
If you missed the chance to grab a slice of the $198 million federal recycling grant pie last year, your second chance has arrived.
More than $100 million is available to local governments, Native tribes and other organizations for either recycling infrastructure on one hand or public education around the topics of food waste and composting on the other, the U.S. EPA announced in September. The announcement came as recipients of the first round in 2023 began hiring staff, collecting data, buying equipment and launching local outreach campaigns.
All of those millions came courtesy of the 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, which allocated hundreds of billions of dollars to transportation, energy and other sectors.
“Thanks to President Biden’s Investing in America agenda, EPA is deploying unprecedented resources to improve recycling services and increase educational outreach to communities,” EPA Administrator Michael S. Regan said in a written statement. “When we work together to prevent waste that contributes to climate change, we support local economies, create jobs that pay well, and better protect the health of everyone in the community.”
As in the first round, the new grant program prioritizes proposals that would benefit “communities that are marginalized by underinvestment and overburdened by pollution” while bolstering a more circular economy nationwide, according to the announcement. It’s available in three buckets:
Applying for federal grants can be an intimidating process, requiring meticulous documentation and detailed planning. But it’s also an arena where even small organizations that have never received a federal grant before can succeed, said Jill Buck, founder and board member of the Go Green Initiative. The California-based nonprofit received $1.1 million last year, its first EPA grant ever, to work with school district staff and high school students in Camden, New Jersey, to spread understanding and participation in recycling programs.
“It’s not for the weak of heart, I will tell you that,” Buck said of the application process, adding that applicants should start early and take advantage of EPA’s informational sessions and other technical assistance. “This is the ultimate reading comprehension exercise; you really have to be fastidious and have tremendous attention to detail when it comes to the instructions.”
Fitting all of the needed information within the page limit can feel “like squeezing a watermelon into a Coke bottle,” she said. “Then you need to demonstrate that you can handle the money.”
A clear and compelling purpose also helps, said Susan Caswell, sustainability director for Florida’s Osceola County. The county received about $750,000 for an education and demonstration effort with a particular focus on glass, which the county had to give up in its bids for county-wide recycling and trash pickup service in 2019 — “every single potential vendor asked us to remove glass,” Caswell said. Yet why the county doesn’t recycle glass is still one of the most frequent questions she hears, and some residents pay a private service to collect it.
The education campaign will work with local schools and feature a mobile glass pulverizer, not only to process the material right in front of residents’ own eyes but also to harness the latent interest in glass to inspire recycling initiatives in the area, Caswell said. The area is full of hotels and restaurants, for example, which generate “just a tremendous amount of glass.”
“We went for the education and outreach kind of as the first step in rethinking glass recycling for the county,” Caswell said. “It allowed us to tell that story in an effective way.”
Projects such as these also highlight how the EPA grants can have ripple effects, both in their targeted communities and in others that might follow their example. Buck said the New Jersey plan — particularly environmental clubs, internships and leadership development for high school students — already proved itself in Pleasanton, California. Since the Go Green Initiative launched a similar project almost a decade ago, the city has seen recycling rates and collections rise while contamination fell by 27%, according to a letter from the city to the EPA.
“They were getting out to businesses and church groups and civic organizations,” Buck said of the Pleasanton students. And as Caswell put it, when it comes to the youth, “if you get them engaged in it, then they start getting on their parents’ case to do better.”
The next occupants of Congress and the White House likely will bring changes to corporate taxes, project permits, worker protections and other industry concerns no matter who wins this year’s elections, legal experts said last week during the first of four webinars hosted by the Recycled Materials Association about the 2024 races. But uncertainty still reigns when it comes to who will win, what they’ll be able to accomplish and how states and courts will respond. Continue Reading
The Policy Committee of the National Recycling Coalition has published a draft policy called “Chemical Recycling Is Not Recycling” and is seeking review and comment. Continue Reading
The California Department of Resources Recycling and Recovery released an updated version of the list of materials covered under its extended producer responsibility program for packaging, making nearly 30 tweaks to the list.
Due to its size and tendency to be on the leading edge of environmental law, California has long been seen as the bellwether, setting policy that other states will later follow – or that producers and manufacturers take as de facto law nationwide when it comes to standards. Continue Reading
The recycling rate in Michigan reached a record high of 23% in 2023, keeping the state on track to achieve its goal of a 30% recycling rate by 2029, according to a press release from the state’s Department of Environment, Great Lakes and Energy. Continue Reading
The fourth meeting to draft a global plastic pollution treaty ended just after 3 a.m. on April 30 with general agreement on the need for global rules and mandates on product design, composition, performance and extended producer responsibility.
Colorado state regulators suggested choosing a mid-level recycling scenario for its extended producer responsibility program for packaging, but a final decision is yet to come. Continue Reading
At the request of the state, Circular Action Alliance revised its draft needs assessment in Colorado in response to over 100 public and industry comments. Continue Reading