Spring 2025 • Fourth Edition
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What's Advanced Recycling?
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Every day, packaging quietly powers our economy – protecting products, enabling commerce, and creating opportunity across the United States. The data tells a remarkable story.
While efforts to recycle packaging waste have been underway for decades, traditional mechanical recycling has some limitations. For example, it struggles to accommodate hard-to-recycle, contaminated, or multi-layer plastic packaging. This can be of concern for producers seeking food-grade or other high-quality recycled content for pharmaceutical or medical packaging.
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The advanced recycling process can resolve those issues, according to several industry groups. The process uses heat, solvents, or other means to remove impurities and break plastic down to its basic building blocks to create new virgin-quality plastic. As a result, advanced recycling may be used on more varieties of plastic—including types 3-7, plastics that have been exposed to contaminants such as food and grease, which can compromise the films, pouches, and tubes used for food packaging.
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"A 2021 report by Closed Loop Partners estimated advanced recycling could potentially double the plastics packaging recycling rate in the U.S. and Canada by 2030."
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The technology is still emerging, and more progress is needed to see its benefits as well as address any potential impacts. Prohibiting such innovation from the outset could stifle efforts to improve recovery and recycling rates and evolve existing infrastructure in the long term.
Indeed, a multi-pronged approach incorporating various recycling technologies—alongside reduction, reuse, and refill strategies—is needed as manufacturers move toward a circular economy and meet the mandates of Extended Producer Responsibility (EPF) and post-consumer resin (PCR) laws.
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Industry Expertise Shapes EPR Policy
Best Practices
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Packaging Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) laws continue to expand across the United States. With Minnesota's landmark law passed in 2024, five states have now fully enacted EPR frameworks for paper and packaging. Maryland and Washington State are poised to become the sixth and seventh states with EPR with legislation awaiting the respective Governor's signatures soon.
These early adopter states have taken unique approaches reflecting their local conditions, but consistency in key definitions and implementation becomes increasingly important as more states develop similar frameworks. Industry expertise in policy development is becoming increasingly important.
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"...consistency in key definitions and implementation becomes increasingly important as more states develop similar frameworks."
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AMERIPEN testified in support of both Washington and Maryland EPR legislation, working alongside policymakers and diverse stakeholders to develop practical, effective solutions. Our leaders were key contributors in the development of Minnesota's shared responsibility funding formula. This balanced model requires producers to gradually increase their funding contribution starting at 50% and capping at 90% for management of covered materials, while maintaining service provider accountability through performance standards—an approach that supports Minnesota's strong existing infrastructure while allowing stakeholders to adapt.
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Maryland's pending legislation demonstrates another best practice: the state conducted a thorough needs assessment before developing its legislation. This critical step established a baseline understanding of current capabilities, enabling more targeted and effective goals. Goring forward, Maryland will require another assessment to evaluate progress and inform future improvements.
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"As more states consider EPR policy, these examples underscore the value of industry partnership in creating systems that are reliable, efficient,
equitable, and fair."
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Continued collaboration between all stakeholders remains essential to advance sustainable packaging solutions that work for businesses, governments, and constituents alike.
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AMERIPEN's advocacy and policy engagement is based on rigorous research rooted in our commitment to achieve sustainable packaging policies.
The depth and breadth of experience within our membership base allows AMERIPEN to tackle big picture policy obstacles with effective solutions.
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