Jeanette Hanna
BASF
Well-designed Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) programs can support development of emerging large-scale organic waste diversion programs. As impacts of climate change become increasingly clear, one immediate contribution we can all make is to ensure that food waste is diverted from landfill where it creates methane, a potent greenhouse gas and instead brought to composting facilities. And, importantly, the valuable compost generated can directly capture and hold carbon, increase the water-holding capacity of soil, and restore organic carbon to support robust plant growth, all of which mitigate impacts of climate change.
Collecting food scraps and other organics at scale can be challenging, due to the fact that most communities do not already have such a program integrated with their existing solid waste programs. There are so many elements of an organics collection program that need to be developed and integrated for all stakeholders to be successful. A well-designed EPR could be the umbrella that drives funding toward the key elements required for such programs to function and ensures different parts of the stakeholder value chain are connected. Innovative tools like certified compostable products can support waste generators in successfully collecting and diverting their organic waste, and when properly included in an EPR program, fees paid by producers of these products can go to composters who process them and to composting education for the public.
The primary elements that need to be considered in an EPR program are covered in a principles document published by BPI (Biodegradable Products Institute) and the USCC (U.S. Composting
Council). In general, certified compostable products and composting need to be treated with the same rigor as recyclable products and recycling. For that reason, an appropriate amount of funding collected by the PRO (Producer Responsibility Organization) must be directed at elements that support the diversion and processing of certified compostable products. To ensure that this end goal is achieved, it is necessary for composting to be fully considered in the initial EPR needs assessment. Because certified compostable products are collected with food waste and they have the same end of life, they must be treated as a class, regardless of their composition. In any organics collection, but in particular for EPR programs, it is important that organics are separated at the source from recyclables and disposal streams, such as those designated for landfill or incineration.
These principles can be most appropriately realized when the certified compostable product industry and compost industries are included in stakeholder support groups, such as advisory boards and producer responsibility organizations. Under eco-modulation programs, where fees are assigned according to certain attributes, certified compostable products should have composting recognized as the intended end of life, and not disposal in landfill or incineration. They should also be exempt from post-consumer recycled content requirements, since they are organically recycled into compost. And finally, products that claim to be certified compostable but do not demonstrate they can make such a claim should be penalized for disrupting compost systems by introducing contamination.
EPR holds promise for providing a framework to support rapid growth of organic waste diversion programs, so long as key elements for supporting the entire organics collection value chain are equitably included relative to the other materials. As EPR continues to be considered in state legislatures and regulatory processes, these elements should be considered with input from all stakeholders who participate in the efforts to develop nascent programs that support diversion of organics at scale from the landfill.
