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Who Pays for Plastic? Inside the Law Quietly Shifting the Bill to Producers · How To Protect The Ocean

• 0:00
  It all starts with a receipt, a grocery run,
• 0:02
  a case of water bottles, a six-pack of yogurt cups.
• 0:05
  Every one of those containers has a bill attached to it that never shows
• 0:10
  up on the receipt itself. And that bill gets paid somewhere,
• 0:14
  right? For decades it landed on cities,
• 0:16
  on garbage trucks, on recycling plants,
• 0:18
  running at a loss. And tax bills that funded those trucks and plants,
• 0:23
  whether the packaging gets recycled or not,
• 0:26
  whether we were lied to or not.
• 0:29
  Now, who actually pays to deal with the plastic once it leaves the shelf?
• 0:33
  For a long time, the honest answer was taxpayers.
• 0:35
  but that is starting to change.
• 0:37
  and the fight over that change is now sitting in front of judges
• 0:40
  in multiple states and quietly playing out at home here in Canada as well,
• 0:45
  in my home. This week started off with an interview on plastic policy
• 0:49
  and microfibers.
• 0:51
  Tuesday through Thursday, we went deep on technology,
• 0:54
  industry pushback, and state-by-state campaigns.
• 0:57
  Today, we close the loop by following the money in the US and right here where
• 1:03
  I live in Canada. Now, this is what we're going to do on the How
• 1:07
  to Protect the Ocean podcast. If you like this kind of stuff and learning more about
• 1:10
  how you can protect the ocean and maybe some science involved in that
• 1:14
  as well in ocean science.
• 1:16
  Please follow on your favorite podcast app,
• 1:18
  share with a friend, share with the family member who would like this type
• 1:21
  of material because this isn't what I do.
• 1:23
  I love doing this kind of stuff.
• 1:25
  I've been doing it for 11 years and counting,
• 1:27
  and I just I enjoy the heck out of it.
• 1:30
  So let's talk more about what's going on and who's paying for plastic.
• 1:34
  The United States actually recycles roughly 48% of its packaging waste.
• 1:37
  I bet you didn't think that. You thought I thought it was more.
• 1:39
  I thought it was more. Belgium,
• 1:40
  which already runs a producer funded system,
• 1:43
  recycles about 78% of its
• 1:45
  packaging.
• 1:46
  That's pretty good. The gap between those two numbers has a price tag.
• 1:50
  The country loses an estimated $7 billion a year in potential value
• 1:55
  by sending plastic that could have been recycled straight to a landfill instead.
• 2:00
  So cities absorb the rest of the cost directly.
• 2:03
  Recycling, collection, and processing gets folded into municipal budgets,
• 2:07
  competing for the same dollars As roads and police.
• 2:10
  One municipal sustainability expert put it plainly:
• 2:13
  nobody wants to pay for recycling,
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  so it usually loses that competition.
• 2:18
  This is a system as it has worked for decades,
• 2:22
  right? Plastic producers design and sell packaging.
• 2:25
  Cities and taxpayers cover what happens after.
• 2:28
  I bet you you didn't even think that when you had a Starbucks or you
• 2:32
  had for in Canada, you had a Tim Horton stuff cup,
• 2:34
  or my kids have Starbucks. And you're probably thinking.
• 2:37
  I'll just, you know, put that in a recycling banner.
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  I'll it up, but it doesn't get recycled,
• 2:41
  right? Because it can't. Just the way it's built,
• 2:43
  it just doesn't get recycled. Right.
• 2:45
  And and all of a sudden, who pays for that?
• 2:47
  You don't think you pay for it because you're just paying for the cup,
• 2:49
  but you eventually pay for it,
• 2:51
  whether it's through taxes or whether it's through your dollar at the counter.
• 2:55
  And so now we're starting to like look at this and how this is going to change,
• 2:59
  So there's a different idea that's starting to spread,
• 3:02
  So extended producer responsibility in the legal framework that requires
• 3:06
  the companies making and selling packaging to fund what happens to
• 3:11
  it after a customer buys the product.
• 3:13
  So seven US states have now passed extended producer responsibility laws covering
• 3:18
  packaging. So Oregon has been charging produce producer fees since July 2025,
• 3:24
  and Colorado started charging fees in January 2026.
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  California, Maine, Minnesota,
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  Maryland and Washington are all in the pipeline,
• 3:34
  phasing in fees and requirements between now and 2030.
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  New Jersey, Illinois, Massachusetts are pursuing their own versions.
• 3:43
  New York's bill has failed twice,
• 3:45
  but most recently in June 2026.
• 3:48
  So they're trying to get this stuff going,
• 3:50
  The cost of packaging waste starts moving from the tax bill into the price tag.
• 3:55
  And we're going to start seeing it as consumers.
• 3:58
  We're paying for it anyway, but it's going to start to move because
• 4:00
  the companies have to start paying for it.
• 4:02
  Now, California Senate Bill 54 is the largest and most closely watched
• 4:08
  of these laws. So it becomes the case study for how the system actually works
• 4:12
  underneath the headline. And you think California,
• 4:14
  yes, this would be a perfect place for this to start.
• 4:16
  A producer under this law is a company with more than $1 million in gross sales
• 4:22
  of covered products.
• 4:23
  Packaging or plastic food serviceware.
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  So producers register with the state's recycling agency and either join
• 4:30
  a nonprofit called the Circular Action Alliance or apply to run their
• 4:35
  own compliance plan independently.
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  Producers pay eco-modulated fees,
• 4:40
  meaning the fee scales with how toxic or how hard the to recycle the packaging is.
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  So now we're starting to we're going to start to see companies be like,
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  I don't want to pay too much of this.
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  I'm gonna start to use better packaging.
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  Patching packaging designed to be reused or easily recycled costs less.
• 4:56
  Packaging that is neither costs more.
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  that is the built-in incentive to redesign packaging in the first place.
• 5:01
  So it's not the fact that, hey,
• 5:03
  this is an excuse for companies to put up their prices if they have
• 5:07
  to have packaging. This is an excuse for companies to pay less
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  and use better packaging so that they can pay less so that you don't have
• 5:13
  to feel it in your wallets.
• 5:15
  Now you'll probably see an increase.
• 5:17
  There's no doubt we're going to see an increase.
• 5:19
  but this is how this is how it's gonna work until we can start getting
• 5:23
  to better packaging and more recyclable packaging,
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  A 10% cut in a single-use plastic packaging in 2027.
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  There's gonna be a 20% in 2030,
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  a 25% in 2032, and at least 10% of all the final cut coming specifically from reuse
• 5:39
  and refill systems rather than just lighter packaging.
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  By 2032.
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  65% of covered packaging has to be recyclable or compostable.
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  One material already got caught by this bar.
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  Expanded polystyrene food serviceware,
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  the foam clamshells and cups needed to hit a 25% recycling rate to stay legal
• 5:59
  for sale in California. That rate has not been met.
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  So as of now, expanded polystyrene food serviceware is prohibited from sale
• 6:08
  in the state. Starting in 2027,
• 6:10
  this system is expected to generate roughly $500 million a year for
• 6:14
  a decade flowing into a plastic pollution mitigation fund.
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  60% of this fund is earmarked for communities most directly affected
• 6:22
  by plastic pollution, with three quarters of that share targeted
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  at low income residents specifically.
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  The rest goes to ecosystem restoration network.
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  So now sit on that number for a second.
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  $500 million a year paid by the companies that make the packaging into
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  a fund for the communities living closest to the pollution it creates.
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  Just think about that, Think about what this does now.
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  It's making the companies responsible.
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  We are seeing unprecedented studies where we're getting information where
• 6:57
  we have plastic pollution in our lungs,
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  we have microplastics in our lungs,
• 7:00
  in our blood.
• 7:02
  In in our air, in our water, in our oceans from the very,
• 7:06
  very depths. If you listen to Ocean Decoded Live,
• 7:09
  I talked about a recent deep sea expedition off of Trinidad and Tobago.
• 7:13
  And what they found there was they still found in the deepest part of that area,
• 7:19
  they still found plastic pollution or even just marine debris.
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  We are touching every part of this planet,
• 7:26
  including our own bodies.
• 7:28
  And this is the time where companies are now gonna have to respond.
• 7:31
  and I think this is kind of interesting because this is something that wasn't really
• 7:34
  expected, right? Because, you know,
• 7:37
  almost as soon as California finalized its rules,
• 7:39
  the law got sued from two completely opposite directions at once.
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  So on the one side, environmental groups filed suit filed suit,
• 7:45
  arguing the regulations were too weak.
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  And their case says that the the
• 7:50
  The rules improperly open the door to chemical recycling technologies that lead that
• 7:54
  let producers claim credit without actually turning plastic back into
• 7:58
  a usable material. In other words,
• 7:59
  they would just heat it up and burn it.
• 8:01
  And that the definitions used to judge whether a recycling market is real
• 8:06
  and viable are too loose to hold up.
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  Now, on the other side, a coalition of 17 state attorneys general,
• 8:12
  ~
• 8:13
  For states, including Texas, Florida,
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  and Alabama, join with a national trade group representing wholesalers
• 8:19
  and distributors to sue, arguing the law goes too far.
• 8:23
  Their case is built on the United States Constitution,
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  that the law discriminates against interstate commerce,
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  that requiring companies to itemize the fee as a separate line
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  on a customer's receipt violates their free speech rights,
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  and that the state handed too much authority to the Circular Action Alliance.
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  So the circular action alliance without ev without enough legislation guardrails
• 8:47
  on how the authority gets used.
• 8:49
  Now, as of now, none of these lawsuits have stopped law.
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  So no court in California or Colorado has issued an injunction.
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  Every deadline and every fee stays in effect while these cases work through
• 9:02
  the system. Oregon's version of the fight has already produced a partial result.
• 9:06
  A judge a preliminary injunction there.
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  But it only applies to members of the wholesaler distributor trade group that's
• 9:13
  sued, not to the law as a whole.
• 9:15
  So that's the picture right now.
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  one side says the law lets producers off too easy.
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  The other side says that the law shouldn't exist in its current form at all.
• 9:25
  Both are suing the same regulation for opposite reasons.
• 9:29
  And that tension is exactly what makes this fight worth watching,
• 9:32
  to be honest.
• 9:33
  Now, what these laws change is that extended producer responsibility does
• 9:37
  not make the cost of dealing with plastic packaging disappear.
• 9:41
  It changes who pays first. So under the old system,
• 9:44
  a city collects trash, a recycling plant loses money processing it.
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  Taxes cover the gap months or years later,
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  quietly without a receipt. And under the new system,
• 9:55
  the producer pays the fee up front based on how much packaging they
• 9:59
  put into the world and how hard it is to deal with.
• 10:02
  So that fee gets built into whatever the product costs before it even ever reaches
• 10:07
  the shelf. Now, here there is an open question here of what happens next,
• 10:11
  right? Does the upfront cost push companies to generally redesign packaging
• 10:16
  and cut plastic the way the built-in fee structure is designed to reward?
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  Or is it just becoming another line item passed straight to the customer,
• 10:25
  changing nothing about how much plastic gets made?
• 10:28
  I alluded that to earlier in this in this episode.
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  And I think this is where it really comes down to how people are going
• 10:36
  to respond to the companies. We're kind of beholden to products that we buy anyway.
• 10:39
  And cut and government should make custom make these companies pay this upfront
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  in the incentive. So you're not actually passing the buck to the customer.
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  Cause that won't be fair. Cause we will pay the the up the increased fee,
• 10:51
  but we can't afford it. That not like the things are already inflated as they are,
• 10:56
  And so I think it'll be interesting to see what happens here and
• 10:59
  how it moves forward in the US and of course in in Canada as well.
• 11:03
  Because that question is not gonna get answered by the law itself.
• 11:07
  It gets answered by what the companies do once the fees start landing
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  and how these lawsuits get resolved over the next few years.
• 11:14
  Now, the same fight that we have is playing back here in Canada.
• 11:18
  It's the exact same, but it has a like it's a version of its
• 11:22
  own version running here, right?
• 11:23
  On two tracks at once. The federal track centers on Canada's single
• 11:27
  use plastics ban, covering things like checkout bags,
• 11:30
  stir sticks, six pack rings, certain utensils,
• 11:34
  and of course straws. A federal court struck down the government's underlying order
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  in December 2023, ruling that the plastics items didn't qualify
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  as a regulatable substance and that Ottawa has overstepped his authority.
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  That ruling was ~ stayed pending appeal.
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  So the ban stayed in effect the entire time.
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  In January 2026, the Federal Court of Appeal reversed that decision,
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  ruling that plastic items can qualify as a substance and that government
• 12:01
  can act as a precautionary principle instead of waiting for proven harm.
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  The ban survives through a superior court appeal that is still possible,
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  So so here's the thing. The ban stayed in in play the whole time.
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  The government
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  basically came out and said, all plastic is toxic.
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  The plastic makers were like, you can't do that.
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  And it banned like six specific single use plastics.
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  The press plastic producers, the chemical companies,
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  the fossil fuel companies and all that came out and said,
• 12:26
  hey, you can't do that. You can't just say that they're all toxic.
• 12:29
  Like we understand that some are toxic,
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  but not all of them. Because we know what's going to happen.
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  Even though the law, like the six ~ six single use plastics didn't really affect
• 12:38
  them.
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  They didn't want anything coming down because they knew something's coming down
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  in the future, where we're going to start to see the responsibility that's going
• 12:45
  to be put down to the makers of this type of plastic,
• 12:48
  right? And so I think it's kind of cool.
• 12:50
  So alongside the band, Canada runs a federal plastics registry.
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  This was one of the things that came out,
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  requiring companies to report how much plastic packaging,
• 12:58
  electronics, and single-use plastics they put on the Canadian market.
• 13:01
  The first phase is already active,
• 13:03
  which is great. Later phases that would have added more detailed reporting.
• 13:07
  Just got delayed after industry pushback about the pace and the data burden,
• 13:11
  which is kind of BS in my opinion,
• 13:13
  with new requirements expected later in 2026.
• 13:17
  Now the bigger shift is the provincial governments,
• 13:19
  and is the direct Canadian equivalent of what California is fighting over right now.
• 13:23
  So British Columbia has run a producer-funded packaging program since 2014.
• 13:27
  Ontario just completed its own transition on January 1st,
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  2026. Full extended producer ~
• 13:34
  responsibility for packaging and paper.
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  Producers now fund the entire blue box system directly.
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  Municipalities and taxpayers no longer pay for it.
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  The province says that this saves Ontario municipalities more than $200 million.
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  And it also standardized what gets accepted for recycling across
• 13:52
  the whole province for the first time.
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  In Quebec, they're moving to full extended producer responsibility
• 13:58
  on a similar timeline. And it goes even further by covering industrial,
• 14:02
  commercial
• 14:03
  And institutional waste generators,
• 14:05
  not just households. So it's kind of interesting,
• 14:08
  right? California just built a producer pay system and got sued for the
• 14:11
  two up from two opposite directions.
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  Ontario finished the same kind of transition on January 1st with
• 14:16
  no comparable lawsuit making headlines.
• 14:18
  And municipalities are also already banking on the savings,
• 14:21
  which is great, right? So this is not just hypothetical talk,
• 14:25
  right? This is not just a policy debate happening somewhere else.
• 14:28
  It already happened here in Ontario where I live.
• 14:31
  And the question that that is really worth the ask is is it working
• 14:35
  the way that it's supposed to?
• 14:36
  Right. And is that $200 million in savings actually reaching taxpayers
• 14:41
  or disappearing into other budget lines?
• 14:43
  That's really where it comes, or I couldn't find out what was happening,
• 14:46
  but because it would kind of be,
• 14:47
  it'd be kind of cool to take that $200 million and put it more towards environmental
• 14:51
  aspects for ~ green spaces in municipalities,
• 14:55
  to clean up waste in municipalities,
• 14:57
  for handling plastic pollution in general that comes through river systems
• 15:00
  and so forth.
• 15:01
  But look, this has been an interesting week in talking about microfibers,
• 15:05
  plastic pollution, how things are being dealt with.
• 15:07
  In Monday's interview, we opened up the door with what was happening with plastic
• 15:11
  policy right now and what needs to happen on the not safe for wash type
• 15:16
  of campaign that Ocean Conservancy was going to do with when we had Dr.
• 15:19
  Anya Brandon on the podcast. Tuesday looked at whether technology
• 15:23
  can actually eat plastic waste.
• 15:25
  Wednesday followed a single load of laundry through the water system.
• 15:28
  Thursday, we talked about the campaign trying to force the appliance industry
• 15:32
  to do more. And today closes the loop of it asking the most basic question
• 15:35
  underneath every one of those.
• 15:37
  Who pays? Who pays for this plastic?
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  And for most of modern history,
• 15:40
  the answer was the public, quietly,
• 15:42
  through taxpayers, and never really mentioned the plastics by name.
• 15:45
  And we kept buying plastic and plastic and plastic containers.
• 15:48
  You know, that's changing now.
• 15:50
  We see it's changing in Canada,
• 15:51
  we see it's changing in the US.
• 15:53
  And I think that's really great.
• 15:54
  So I think it's it's kind of cool.
• 15:55
  Whichever way these US courts fights lands or or what happens in Canada,
• 16:00
  it will likely become a template for other states to copy it.
• 16:03
  And for Canadian listeners, the system is no longer theoretical.
• 16:06
  We're actually seeing this put in place.
• 16:08
  and is the building that produces directly right now in your own municipality.
• 16:12
  I think that's kind of a cool thing to do when you when we look at this plastic,
• 16:17
  we shouldn't have to pay for it.
• 16:19
  Producers should pay for it. We used to have better ways of doing plastic.
• 16:22
  It used to be about the less packaging was the better.
• 16:25
  And we're going back to that hopefully.
• 16:26
  And hopefully, we're just not just being charged a lot more for that.
• 16:29
  I'll try and look into that a little bit more of how we are being charged
• 16:33
  if producers are putting it onto the customer.
• 16:35
  And if so, that's not cool. That's not cool one bit.
• 16:38
  ~ anyway, that's it for the episode for today.
• 16:40
  I want to thank you so much for joining us this week,
• 16:43
  joining us each and every episode.
• 16:45
  Don't forget to follow.
• 16:46
  and if you want to contact me,
• 16:47
  you can do so. If you're on Spotify,
• 16:49
  leave me a comment. I'll get back to you as soon as I can.
• 16:52
  And if you if you're on social media,
• 16:54
  just DM me. my social links are in the show notes.
• 16:58
  ~ thank you so much for joining me on today's episode of the How
• 17:00
  to Protect the Ocean podcast. I'm your host,
• 17:02
  Andrew Lewin. Have a great day.
• 17:03
  We'll talk to you next time and happy conservation.