Podcast - Hot Topics in Nuclear Waste
After 15 years without significant revisions, the Alabama Department of Environmental Management (ADEM) is proposing an overhaul of its recycling rules. The proposed regulations, which ADEM released for public notice and...more
Beginning in May of 2026, owners of brands selling packaged products and importers of foreign-produced packaged products sold in Maine will be required to adhere to Maine’s Stewardship Program for Packaging. Beginning six...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
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
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
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
Organic waste collection regulations became effective as of January 1, 2022 for local government jurisdictions in California. Since 2006 California has aggressively pursued establishment of economy-wide greenhouse gas (GHG)...more
Last month, Maine signed the nation’s first packaging-based extended producer responsibility program into law, signaling a possible sea change in the way we handle recycling in the United States....more
Regulatory reform has dominated the Trump administration’s environmental policy agenda to date, fueled by Executive Orders requiring agencies to identify unnecessary regulations for revision or outright rescission, and to...more