Minnesota

Representative Sydney Jordan, Minnesota House of Representatives, served as the Chief Author of the Packaging Waste and Cost Reduction Act in 2024. This is Minnesota’s EPR for packaging policy and was signed into law by Governor Tim Walz in May of 2024. It is currently being implemented by the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA), the Advisory Council, and the Producer Responsibility Organization.

Recommendations for Policymakers Developing Circular Policy & EPR for Packaging Policies:

1. Have a local coalition. In Minnesota, having the support of local county and city governments was key to our success. As counties and cities are responsible for waste management here, they had the most to gain by reforming our recycling system. Knowing the national outlook is important, but your local affiliates might have different opinions. NGOs and local advocacy organizations have volunteers and relationships with legislators on a different level. Making sure your community is on board to help will ensure successful passage.

2. Prepare for no one to be happy and accept compromise. In Minnesota, we established from the beginning that no one party would get every policy they wanted- including me as the bill author. Establishing this from the beginning will help you negotiate throughout the bill crafting process and help level set expectations as you put together a complicated proposal with lots of competing viewpoints.

3. Be intentional about exemptions. You will be approached by many industries asking to be exempt from EPR for paper and packaging. The more producers that are included in your EPR program, the more equitable it will be for producers. While it is helpful to align definitions across states (i.e. the definition of producer), aligning exemptions is less helpful as each state has unique exemptions that reflect the economy and culture of that state. For example, “Medical products” is very vague and could mean anything from a pacemaker to cosmetic items. Some of those products have packaging regulated by the FDA and others don’t.

Resources:

1. Existing EPR states and expertise: I spoke to legislators and experts who put together the existing EPR laws in Colorado, California, Oregon, and Maine. My law looks very different from their laws as a result of those conversations as I was able to learn from their proposals.

2. National Caucus of Environmental Legislators: I got my first EPR 101 from NCEL after reading about the Maine law. They helped connect me with authors in the US, experts from around the world, and held my hand as I worked on the Minnesota law.