August 2024 - Executive Director's Update

I hope this finds you all well as summer is now in full swing – and HOT! Hopefully you have been able to find some quality and quantity downtime with family and friends as Labor Day now approaches, schools are heading back to class, and the cadence of industry conferences and meetings picks up again.

We’ve been able to enjoy some quieter weeks with just a handful of state legislatures in session and not too much activity there on our primary packaging policy issues. This has given us some time to start thinking about legislative advocacy and policy efforts in 2025 while we continue to be at the table this summer on implementation of packaging EPR, including submitting comments on proposed regulations, in several states. Together, we continue to lead public policy engagement, thoughtful science-based research, and stakeholder engagement for the entire U.S. packaging industry.

Demonstrating strong support for our continued growth, we have already added 16 new members in 2024! This includes American Coatings Association, Anchor Packaging, Biodegradable Products Institute (BPI), Chick-fil-A, Contract Packaging Association, Del Monte Foods, Energizer Holdings, Ingevity, IPL Global, Minerals Technologies Inc., PakTech, PMMI, The Toy Association, TOPPAN USA, WK Kellogg, and World Centric. It's another great growth year for AMERIPEN, and we are thrilled that all these great organizations have joined us.

Our growth and focus would not be possible without your membership and support. With your continued participation, we can provide key decision-makers with the best available information and policy guidance and enable more opportunities for you to engage with colleagues across the packaging value chain. The entire AMERIPEN team is grateful for the opportunity to work with such engaged and intelligent members, and we appreciate the product and packaging expertise you bring to us, as well as your ongoing commitment to and support of AMERIPEN.

As a reminder, we recently sent out a letter announcing our 2025 membership dues increase for all membership levels. For more details on this change and how it may affect you, please refer to my letter and additional information available here.

Please don’t hesitate to reach out to me anytime to talk about how we can benefit you, your company, and the entire packaging industry value chain. My door is always open.

Dan Felton
Executive Director
AMERIPEN