A letter from our founders
Dave Ford and Marta Fiscina share why Circle exists and what the Legislator Guide means for Circular Policy
Almost eight years ago, the OPLN was born in the Atlantic Garbage Patch. We were in the Bermuda Triangle with 165 leaders from across the ecosystem, seeing firsthand the effects of plastics in our ocean. That experience gifted us our neutral convening modality. The goal of that expedition was simple: get every stakeholder to see the challenges up close. And somehow, we were able to bring environmental NGO leaders and petrochemical executives on the same mission, looking out at the same horizon, immersed in the same water, having the same conversations.
It was in that experience that our neutral convening heartbeat was born, and is at the heartbeat of everything we’ve done ever since.
Flash forward to today. OPLN has kept its fundamental principles: Information Integrity. Multi-Stakeholder Visibility. Practical Policy Readiness.
Circle was born three years ago when we took our first two legislators to see implemented Extended Producer Responsibility and Deposit Return Systems. Two legislators turned into five, then into twenty. And today, we’ve taken over 75 elected officials on experiential immersions to British Columbia, Québec, Germany, Lithuania, and Oregon to understand circular policy systems firsthand.
Circle is now the core of OPLN’s work — and we couldn’t be more excited, because at this moment in time, this is where we can be most useful to the entire ecosystem.
Circular policy, in our neutral scope, includes every element showing up in legislation right now: EPR, Deposit Return, Reuse, Reduction, Recycled Content Targets, Advanced/Chemical/Molecular Recycling, Labeling, Composting, and more. Each of these elements influences stakeholder responsibilities and decision-making. There is a massive delta of understanding across legislators and the value chain alike, and closing that gap is our North Star.
We are nonpartisan. We are neutral. We create a space where policymakers, industry, scientists, and NGOs can learn, compare, and understand emerging packaging and recycling systems without advocacy, pressure, or predetermined outcomes. Our goal is simple: Create experiences, programs, and tools that help everyone learn — whether they support these policies, oppose them, or simply want to understand what’s coming.
How This Legislator Guide Came to Life
In September 2025, Circle by OPLN launched the Circular Policy Leadership Exchange at the See Change Conference — a new space where lawmakers from across the country met with brands, NGOs, recyclers, environmental scientists, technical experts, and leaders across the packaging value chain.
During those sessions, legislators made a clear request:
a trusted, neutral, nonpartisan guide that explains circular policy, compares state approaches, and brings stakeholder perspectives together in one place.
This Legislator Guide is the direct response to that request.
Lawmakers asked for:
- clarity on every major policy mechanism,
- visibility into what states are already doing,
- balanced summaries of stakeholder recommendations, and
- a tool that avoids advocacy and instead supports informed decision-making
This guide is built to do exactly that.
Neutrality & Usefulness: The North Star of This Guide
Just as neutrality is at the center of OPLN’s origin, neutrality and usefulness are the north star of this Legislator Guide.
We do not advocate for specific policy outcomes.
We do not elevate one stakeholder’s objectives above another’s.
We do not tailor content to political preferences or industry agendas.
Our only aim is to provide accurate, comparable, practical information so policymakers can make decisions with full visibility into the system in front of them.
