News

Washington state has 4 product stewardship laws (PDF) as of 2018:

LightRecycle (PDF): Washington's statewide mercury-containing light stewardship program, recycled over 4 million lights 2015-2018.

An October 2018 report from Canada's Ecofiscal Commission found "that policy changes can make our waste systems—from product manufacturing to waste disposal—more efficient and less costly. The key to an efficient waste management system is getting incentives right and relying more on market-based policies."

BBC, Nov. 25, 2018: The British government's "long-awaited resource and waste strategy... is expected to force manufacturers, retailers and supermarkets to pay significantly more towards recycling their waste.

According to reports, one of the key elements of the plan will be to put far greater emphasis on making manufacturers pay for the recycling of their own waste packaging.

John Coyne of the Canadian Stewardship Services Alliance (CSSA), Nov. 27, 2018 in the The Chronicle Herald (Canada):

A long read in the Nov. 13, 2018 Guardian detailed the history of plastic and recycling in light of recent events:

"a loose alliance of oil and chemical companies, along with drinks and packaging manufacturers, pursued a two-part strategy that would successfully defuse anti-plastic sentiment for a generation.

Waste Dive, Nov. 27, 2018: "The Canadian Council of Ministers of the Environment (CCME) announced plans for a nationwide "zero-plastic-waste strategy" and to reduce kilogram per capita waste 30% by 2030 and 50% by 2040."

In almost one year since starting a container deposit scheme (also known as a "bottle bill" or deposit return system), residents of New South Wales, Australia, "have returned more than 900 million cans and bottles.

Packaging Europe, Nov. 14, 2018: When the German Packaging Law comes into effect on January 1, 2019, the new legislation will set down binding rules to increase recycling quotas and levy higher fees for packaging which is difficult to recycle (via Reloop Platform).

Los Angeles Times, Nov. 16, 2018:
"preventing owners from fixing or upgrading devices on which they’ve spent hundreds or thousands of dollars has fueled the right-to-repair movement, which saw measures safeguarding this right introduced this year in about 20 states. None passed...

From January through September 2018, Washingtonians recycled over 950,000 mercury-containing lights, weighing more than 450,000 pounds, via LightRecycle Washington. LightRecycle, a manufacturer operated product stewardship program run by nonprofit PCA Product Stewardship Inc.