Plastic production has increased exponentially over the last few decades. This has fueled a plastic pollution crisis that has impacted every part of our planet with more than 11 million metric tons of plastic entering our ocean every year. The surge in single-use plastic for packaging and foodware has been heavily driven by dangerously cheap fossil fuel feedstocks due to decades of subsidies. These plastics have overrun our already struggling recycling system, increasing pollution, costs and community impacts. The science shows that we need a comprehensive approach to tackle a crisis of this magnitude, including:

1. Making less plastic.
2. Improving collection and management of the plastics we do use.
3. Cleaning up plastics already in the environment.

Comprehensive extended producer responsibility policies, if designed correctly, provide an opportunity to do precisely that.

Comprehensive extended producer responsibility (EPR) for our ocean

Comprehensive EPR policies hold producers of plastics and other packaging financially accountable for costs associated with the full lifecycle of their products, including their disposal. For too long, the costs and responsibility of managing plastics and other packaging waste have fallen to consumers and local governments. By requiring producers to pay for their wasteful products, not only does EPR save households and local governments money, it forces producers to work together to achieve better environmental outcomes overall. 

EPR provides an opportunity to finally address the massive quantities of single-use plastics and other packaging that are delivered to consumers without regard for the waste these products create or the harm they cause to the environment and communities. But not all EPR policies are the same. To achieve the best environmental, social and economic outcomes, EPR policies need to be well-crafted, focused on ambitious outcomes and implementable. Policies also need to be crafted with local communities and experts to fit the local context.

Based on Ocean Conservancy’s experience drafting groundbreaking laws like California’s SB 54, a landmark EPR law that will eliminate 23 million tons of plastics in the next 10 years, we have developed a toolkit for comprehensive EPR legislation to enable states to address this crisis holistically. This toolkit includes model comprehensive EPR legislation that combines EPR for packaging and paper products, a deposit return system (DRS) for beverage containers and source reduction requirements for single-use plastics to achieve the best environmental outcomes for states across the U.S. This approach to comprehensive EPR can create transformational change to protect our ocean, waterways, climate and communities from plastic pollution by:

• Requiring meaningful reduction in single-use plastics.
• Requiring that all plastics and packaging are redesigned to be reusable, recyclable or compostable and eliminate toxic additives.
• Investing in reuse and refill infrastructure as well as recycling and composting.
• Creating a plastic pollution mitigation fund, paid for by plastic producers, to address the impacts of plastic pollution, with 60% of the fund directed to benefit environmental justice communities.
• Requiring data reporting and auditing to increase transparency and oversight.
• Saving local government money to invest in other needed community projects.

States can lead the way to tackle plastic pollution 

Ocean Conservancy developed this toolkit and model legislation to include the strongest strategies to address plastic pollution through legislation in the U.S. As state and local governments are primarily responsible for regulating and funding plastic and packaging waste management, recycling and cleanup efforts, they stand to gain the most in passing a comprehensive EPR policy that will deliver strong environmental, social and economic benefits.  This policy is aimed at state-level legislation because states have been, and continue to be, the leaders on the issue of plastic pollution.

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Model Legislation Text

Toolkit Appendix

Section by Section

Want to learn more about the impacts of well-crafted EPR?

Check out Ocean Conservancy’s work on California’s SB 54. 

• Blog: Combatting the Plastic Pollution Crisis in California
• Fact Sheet: CA SB 54 – A Win for Our Ocean
• Fact Sheet: CA SB 54 – Tackling Plastic Pollution at the Source