A bill paving the way to make producers of certain goods take greater responsibility for their packaging waste has cleared the state House and is making progress in the Senate.
House Bill 2399, sponsored by Rep. Nicole Lowen, a Democrat representing Kailua-Kona, Holualoa, Kalaoa and Honokohau, creates a program that would ultimately include registration of high-volume producers of fast-moving consumer goods who would pay an annual fee that would go into an “extended producer responsibility” special fund to reduce the volume of packaging waste going into landfills.
A companion bill was sponsored in the Senate by Sen. Laura Acasio, D-Hilo.
Changes made in a series of House and Senate committees have diluted the bill, based on objections coming primarily from the food, beverage and retail industries.
Lauren Zirbel, executive director of the Hawaii Food Industry Association, told committees in testimony that the bill is mainly just another tax, a tax that would be passed on to consumers.
“Hawaii is already one of only a handful of states that tax groceries,” Zirbel said in March 21 testimony. “We cannot see a justification for the state to add another tax on groceries and other essential items at a time of unprecedented inflation, during a global supply chain crisis, when the state budget has a surplus.”
Currently, the bill provides for a study and creation of a report assessing the resources needed to reduce packaging waste volume going to landfills and incinerators by 50% by 2026 and 80% by 2030. It allows the Department of Health to decide when a producer registration would take effect, as well as other parts of the program.
“Right now, it’s a win to have the bill moving forward. If it passes the Senate, there will be an opportunity in conference to negotiate between the House and Senate versions,” Lowen said Tuesday. “Of course, I prefer the House version which involves real action, not just a study. Plastic waste is a serious issue and we can’t keep delaying doing something about it.”
Numerous testifiers, from environmental groups to a few state agencies, agreed with Lowen.
“We are excited about HB 2399 because, if enacted, it would be the first EPR law in the U.S. that recognizes that plastic pollution and packaging problems won’t be solved by recycling alone,” said Miriam F. Gordon, policy director of Upstream. “It prioritizes eliminating single-use packaging at the source by transitioning to reusable formats, which is better for people and the planet.”
Extended producer responsibility, or EPR, is an international effort to get producers to shoulder more of the disposal burden that currently falls to government and its taxpayers.
The program charges producers a fee for packaging of products with high disposal costs such as electronics, batteries, paint and medications. The money goes to a fund that governments can tap into for waste disposal.
The extra fees are not only to help pay the disposal costs but also as an incentive for producers to reduce waste-stream impacts. Under the bills, the registration and fees would apply only to producers with a packaging volume of more than 10,000 metric tons internationally or has international gross sales of fast-moving consumer goods of more than $500 million.
“This bill would give money to the counties to improve recycling services, which is a need that I hear about from constituents all the time,” Lowen said. “And that would be paid for by plastic producers instead of taxpayers.”