Environment update: Maine tries to shift recycling costs from taxpayers to plastics producers

Plastic waste - mostly not recyclable 

A Washington Post article discusses an attempt by the state of Maine to shift disposal and recycling costs to waste producers. Not surprisingly, producers staunchly oppose this move. This was prompted by the refusal of China to accept plastic waste for recycling. Recycling is more mirage than reality. Only about 9% of plastic waste is recyclable. The concept of recycling plastic has always been an oil and chemical industry lie. The concept was heavily sold propaganda to get Americans to be deceived into psychological comfort with single-use plastics. WaPo writes:

“It’s good that the bottom fell out,” said Rep. Nicole Grohoski (D-Ellsworth), the bill’s Democratic sponsor, whose district includes Trenton. She doesn’t believe the old system of shipping products halfway around the world to China made sense as countries try to reduce their carbon footprints.

“We have to face this problem and use our own ingenuity to solve it,” Grohoski said.

The proposed legislation, which is vehemently opposed by representatives for Maine’s retail and food producing industries, would charge large packaging producers for collecting and recycling materials as well as for disposing of non-recyclable packaging. The income generated would be reimbursed to communities like Trenton to support their recycling efforts. EPR [extended producer responsibility] programs already exist in many states for a variety of toxic and bulky products including pharmaceuticals, batteries, paint, carpet and mattresses. At least a dozen states, from New York to California and Hawaii, have been working on similar bills for packaging.

“Ten years ago, this would have been unthinkable,” said Dylan de Thomas, vice president of external affairs at the Recycling Partnership, who said he is seeing far more openness to EPR bills from such corporate giants as Coca-Cola and Unilever than in the past.

“It’s a reflection of the pressure they are seeing from corporate investors,” said de Thomas, who anticipates there may be similar shifts in national policies.

The plastic waste problem is worsening, if what one sees in grocery stores is an indicator. Smaller amounts of product means more waste per unit or ounce of product. A vast array, dozens or hundreds, of snacks and prepared foods are now available, mostly in single use, mostly non-recyclable packaging. Thousands and thousands of plastic water and beverage bottles. Just look at all the plastics in grocery stores and snack shops. Little of it is recyclable. So, off to the landfill or onto the streets the plastic goes.

Questions: Should the cost of recycling be pushed onto producers because they are the ones who generate the waste and tricked us into getting used to it? Or are us consumers responsible for dealing with plastic waste because we buy it? 

At present, people toss glass and plastic liquid bottles out and there's not enough deposit fee incentive to recycle. Would getting rid of plastic containers for water and beverages and replacing that with glass bottles, maybe with a non-trivial deposit fee for each bottle, be too inconvenient for most Americans to accept? 

Producers argue that costs to consumers would increase as producers pass the costs through. Opponents deny that. Is it better to do nothing or try to reduce plastic waste?