Will your business be impacted by EPR Laws?

Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) is an environmental policy that holds businesses responsible for their products’ environmental impact throughout their lifecycle. EPR is a business response to climate change and environmental degradation, and it encourages companies to design more sustainable and recyclable products and manufacturing processes.

Per this article, on 21 May 2024, Minnesota joined Oregon, Maine, Colorado and California in implementing packaging EPR laws on packaging that comes in to Minnesota.

Minnesota, which is 4^th in the nation in individual boat ownership, extended its law to include plastic boat wraps that are used when a boat is in storage and typically thrown away when the boat is taken out of storage.

In effect, any organization that introduces one ton or more of covered materials (single use packaging, paper products and boat wraps) needs to pay a fee to cover the cost of recycling the materials, or be fined.

If your company ships materials into Oregon, Maine, Colorado, California and now Minnesota, you need to review how much packaging material is used to support your products.

Other states will join.  So, even if your current distribution does not include these five states, you should start reviewing your packaging and how to recycle same.

This will become a component of all product distribution cost structures.

If you want a plan to turn this into a positive financial outcome, read this on what you want in a sustainability program, watch this master class, and contact us.