Summer updates on EPR and source reduction

Last month we reviewed one of the new elements that have been introduced into US Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) for packaging and paper products - source reduction of plastics - that creates a great opportunity for food brands to reconsider glass.

The California version focused entirely on plastics. The authors and advocates that had been pushing for passage of the law had very much intended to have less plastic packaging in the State in the future, and every brand (producer) with plastics has to report on the plastic packaging and components.

Circular Action Alliance (CAA), aka the Producer Responsibility Organisation, must come up with a plan to meet the source reduction targets in law, but can draw upon voluntary reductions from brands before organising more targeted efforts to add to the effort and meet the targets.

GPI is working with CAA to identify the product areas where the best opportunities for glass exist for material switching out of plastic to glass, especially those that can move quickly because they do not require a company to completely change a packaging line.

As often as the movement for EPR has created opportunities for glass, we must be vigilant as an industry to prepare for other materials or unintended consequences of regulations that do not follow legislative intent. As with several of the other newer elements of US EPR law terminology, when the definitions are not clearly laid out, or being interpreted by European-based consultants that bring their own perspective to the regulatory work in the United States and Canada, this can create issues for glass - such as weight based fees that incentivize plastics use, or a misinterpretation of "source reduction" for plastics that turns into another opportunity for disciples of lifestyle analysis to completely get things wrong.

This is a potential issue in Minnesota, where consultants with a certain European perspective are not following legislative intent or underlying environmental statute and mixing up waste reduction with source reduction. These are not the same concept, and the misinterpretation must be called out before it is too late.

Minnesota law has addressed waste reduction for some time, as one of the US states that has very specifically advanced policy that puts teeth into waste diversion goals. In addition, the Minnesota waste reduction environmental policy is tied to less waste and less toxics.

In an odd quirk of the law, the needs assessment is not just an inventory of infrastructure assets, haulers, MRFs, and material processors, but the agency is to get advice from consultants to inform the PRO about ways to "source reduce" or "waste reduce".

There is no statutory numeric rate of reduction, but the PRO must make plans to try and reduce waste, alongside its task to develop plans to incentivise more post-consumer recycled content and source reduce plastics in California.

Unfortunately, this is where the plot twists. With a completely open field to review, a base law in the state that focuses on diversion of recycled material from landfill and reducing exposure to toxics, and the precedent of California focusing the new terminology of source reduction meaning less plastic, the consultants landed on the need to lightweight glass beer bottles for waste reduction and to ignore the use of glass in reuse/refill strategies.

We believe they have just missed the boat entirely, and the early returns bolster our arguments.  Legislative intent and debate was clearly focused on reducing plastic and toxics from landfills and recycling more of the material that is already recycled well.

If a package is recycled, and the glass in Minnesota is rarely waste - the state was the only one in the US with a glass recycling rate in the top ten without a deposit return system - then the glass is not waste. Reducing the weight of a package that is entirely recyclable is not a source of waste reduction, because it is not waste.

Reducing the volume of a difficult to recycle resin (film or polystyrene) that is unlikely to get recycled is more likely to be waste reduction. Reducing those materials that are difficult to recycle and have toxic chemicals meets the legislative history and intent of the Minnesota law much more.

Furthermore, the amount of glass in the waste stream is far less than the amount of plastics and fibre and plasticised fibre in the waste stream. This is where that pesky weight measure strikes again - and some packaging consultants just cannot shake their bias on weight.

Reducing the weight of glass is not something that the state or the PRO can control with a market the size of Minnesota and frankly comes off as trying to take a short cut as a "waste reduction" strategy.

GPI will work to make sure this concept does not take hold, and will push back on the concepts and guidance being offered by the consulting firm. Comments on the Minnesota needs assessment are open through November 13.

This article was originally published in the October 2026 issue of Glass International.