Lawmakers in Hartford heard testimony Friday about a proposal to make manufacturers responsible for more of the waste created by their products.
If approved, the bill would shift the burden of recycling containers, food packaging, and even straws to manufacturers. Supporters say the measure would clean up trash bins and help reduce the rising cost of trash disposal, currently borne by taxpayers.
But opponents raised concerns that the bill could negatively impact individual consumers.
The debate unfolds as Connecticut faces a solid waste crisis hinging on a problem with no easy solution: too much trash with fewer and fewer places to put it.
One of the state’s key trash processing facilities, the Materials Innovation and Recycling Authority in Hartford, has signaled that it will soon close. That’s left the state with hundreds of thousands of tons of garbage that will likely need to be shipped to costly out-of-state landfills – at taxpayer expense.
Katie Dykes, chair of the Department of Energy and Environmental Protection, told members of the Environment Committee Friday morning that keeping consumer packaging out of trash bins will, eventually, save money.
Dykes said the road to that is by forcing manufacturers to implement “extended producer responsibility” programs to recycle the packaging.
“We believe that this would generate about $40 million in savings for municipalities,” Dykes pointed out, “by shifting the responsibility for managing packaging from taxpayers and consumers to those brand owners, who are in the best position to try to redesign their packaging to make it more easily recyclable.”
A consumer packaging law recently passed in Maine. That program requires manufacturers to pay into a fund that will reimburse municipalities for costs associated with recycling consumer packaging products. It will take several years to go into effect, though. Oregon has also passed extended producer responsibility laws.
But the Connecticut measure is opposed by some in the waste industry, as well as the Connecticut Business and Industry Association, and several Democratic lawmakers. Their reason? Current recycling systems are adequate and the bill could be costly.
“Large national companies will not absorb this cost,” said Melinda Johnson, director of community engagement and advocacy at the YWCA, Hartford Region. “It will be passed to consumers.”
“This kind of increase hits lower income residents the hardest,” Johnson said. “The raised bill takes aim at vulnerable consumers during an unpredictable pandemic, which has displaced consumers while grocery prices are on the rise.”
Johnson said alternatives to the “extended producer responsibility” programs for consumer packaging could include strengthening ties between municipalities and private industry to improve collection.
She also said work could be done to assist trash and recycling facilities to better process and market this material.
A public hearing is just one part of the legislative process. The bill would still need to be taken up by the legislature, approved, and signed by the Governor to become law. If passed, it would likely take years to implement.
In the meantime, the garbage will keep coming.
