For years, I've been indicating this would reduce resource use, waste, and motivate a transition. However, there can be problems in the implementation.
Packaging is an industry that includes the producers, printers, and raw material suppliers. It also allows advertising. There will be opposition towards a transition because of possible job losses.
Also, less packaging costs should reduce cost for the customer right? Yet my concern is that manufacturers will maintain the revenue stream by increasing the product cost. As well, politicians will oblige the industry by tax-payer funded subsidies.
Just like the recent medical recommendations that indicated less preventative examinations until a certain age, I think the cost per procedure will rise inversely to the reduced frequency it occurs.
Loopholes will be found to maintain or increase the revenue stream unless oversight and criteria are imposed to thwart them.
Attention those of you who sell products that have a lot of extraneous packaging. Or products that are known to have an adverse effect on the environment. The U.S. National League of Cities has written and adopted a resolution that favors producer responsibility for handling disposal and overall lifecycle management.
This resolution got my attention because it comes just a few weeks after a coalition of states lined up to blast an electronics industry lawsuit against New York City that seeks to alter some of NYC’s recycling and technology takeback policies.
The basic premise behind the new resolution is that product manufacturers and the direct consumer, not taxpayers or local governments, should be responsible for dealing with the lifecycle impact of their product.
Here’s a statement from Heidi Sanborn, Product Policy Institute Outreach Director and Executive Director of the California Product Stewardship Council: “This resolution empowers local governments by speaking with one voice on the need for waste policy reform. It tells Congress to protect producer responsibility legislation at the state of local levels.”
It also puts manufacturers and product vendors on notice that state and local governments will play hardball on this subject.
