[Podcast] Catching Up on Canadian Environmental Regulation
The Great Green North: A Discussion on Canada’s Environmental Regulations
In remarks at the Environmental Council of the States’ 2025 spring meeting, EPA Administrator Zeldin indicated that no decisions have yet been made on how the Agency is going to address PFAS, but that it will weigh the...more
The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) recently unveiled its National Strategy to Prevent Plastic Pollution (Plastic Pollution Strategy), a comprehensive document that outlines voluntary measures and regulatory...more
On November 21, 2024, the EPA issued its final National Strategy to Prevent Plastic Pollution, as required by the Save Our Seas 2.0 Act. This comes after the Agency received almost 92,000 comments on its draft strategy. ...more
Plastic packaging and food ware are some of the first targets of California’s ambitious and far-reaching program to achieve a “Circular Economy” that reduces waste and pollution. The California Department of Resources,...more
On October 14, 2024, California's Department of Resources Recycling and Recovery (“CalRecycle”) released its proposed final regulations for California’s extended producer responsibility (“EPR”) packaging and plastic food...more
What Happened - On Monday, October 14, 2024, the California Department of Resources Recycling and Recovery (CalRecyle) opened a public comment period on changes to the previously proposed regulations implementing the...more
The extended producer responsibility (“EPR”) programs for packaging that are currently unfolding in several states impose two primary obligations on producers of covered materials—reporting data and paying fees to a producer...more
On July 1, 2024, CalRecycle published an updated list of covered material categories as required by California’s extended producer responsibility (EPR) law. SB 54 was signed into law by Governor Newsom in June 2022 and...more
As we wrap up our week-long celebration of Earth Day with insightful articles focusing on various aspects of plastic pollution, this final article focuses on how the courts are being asked to step into ring and referee the...more
On March 31, Circular Action Alliance (“CAA”), the Producer Responsibility Organization (“PRO”) for California, Colorado, and the only contender for PRO in Oregon, submitted the first draft of its Program Plan (“the Plan”)...more
Earlier this week, New York State Attorney General Letitia James filed suit against PepsiCo. At the core of the case are allegations that PepsiCo.’s widespread use of single-use plastics has created or contributed to a...more
On September 4, 2023, the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee on Plastic Pollution (INCPP) released a draft proposal on the reduction of global plastic pollution. The so-called “Zero Draft” proposes measures to address...more
It is probably fair to say that SB 54 – California’s extended producer responsibility (EPR) law imposing source reduction and recycling requirements on single use packaging and plastic food service ware – is not only the...more
Earlier this month, a team of researchers out of the UK, Canada, and New Zealand published a first-of-its-kind study in the peer-reviewed Journal of Hazardous Material Advances, examining the microplastics pollution potential...more
California’s Plastic Pollution Prevention and Packaging Producer Responsibility Act (the “Act” or “SB 54”) is a variation of the increasingly popular Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) and circular economy frameworks in...more
On March 29, 2023, the California Department of Resources Recycling and Recovery (CalRecycle) held a workshop on Producer Responsibility Organizations (PROs) and forthcoming regulations under the Plastic Pollution Prevention...more
On February 28, CalRecycle held an informational workshop for SB 54, the Plastic Pollution Prevention and Packaging Producer Responsibility Act. The workshop focused on the Advisory Board and Needs Assessment components of...more
Three hundred million tons of plastics are produced each year worldwide. Less than 10% of plastic waste in the United States is recycled each year. With projections showing that plastics production is expected to triple over...more
California’s SB 54, or the Plastic Producer Responsibility Act, represents a substantial expansion of the increasingly popular form of legislation focused on extended producer responsibility (EPR) for plastic recycling. While...more
Last week, the Ocean Protection Council adopted California’s Statewide Microplastics Strategy. The strategy is the first of its kind in the nation, focusing on outlining steps to address microplastic pollution, an emerging...more