Leading recycling industry association, the Institute for Scrap Recycling Industries, ISRI, believes the Connecticut Extended Producer Responsibility Bill is drafted in such a way that ignores the strength, capabilities, and vibrancy of the existing recycling industry.
See, “ISRI Testifies Against Connecticut Product Stewardship Legislation“, Waste 360, February 27, 2017
The association says stewardship programs make little sense for used and end-of-life materials.
ILSR agrees with ISRI. Extended Producer Responsibility for hard to recycle and toxic materials are a vital part of any solid waste management system. But EPR for paper, packaging and products that already have collection, processing and marketing infrastructure is counter productive. In effect, setting up state wide stewardship bureaucracies that remove the public from local decision-making is a threat to US recycling which supports 65,000 companies, over one million workers and supplies the country with 200 million tons of raw materials annually. These corporate concentration efforts are nothing but a ‘hostile take over of the recycling industry’, according to Mary Lou Van Deventer, Urban Ore, Berkeley, CA. “Then, EPR will take my business away as is happening in British Columbia, Canada under EPR laws. Eric Lombardi of EcoCycle, Boulder, CO adds. “The problem with EPR occurs when it enter areas were markets already exist.”
See, Does the Citizens Recycling Movement Face a Hostile Takeover? by Neil Seldman, July 2013.
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