 So good to see you all, sorry we had snowed out the last time. And so we have two meetings left, so today we have some more testimony. And we also have our draft reports and our comments that we all chipped in in previous meetings. And sort of a form to work through, an item that we've been discussing as a possible priority or recommendation, pros and cons associated with that and notes to capture. So if we'll work through that, and after we do the testimony, and then we'll, that'll put us in a good position to have a revised draft for our final meeting in a week. Any procedural or we'll have two questions? Okay, all right, so let's jump in. I'd like to invite first Adam Peer to join us at the table. Just to jump right into it. Yes, please. The floor is yours. Well, good afternoon everybody. Thank you for having me here today. My name is Adam Peer, I'm Senior Director for Packaging at the American Chemistry Council. I'm here today to talk a little bit about what ACC is doing on recycling, some policy suggestions. But most of all, I'm here to be a resource for all of you as you put together your report and you make your recommendations and suggestions to the state and to the legislature. So if there's something that I can't answer here, I'd be happy to research it for you and to get that information back to you. Great, thanks. So one of the things that ACC members, and especially in the plastic division, really value is looking at being a leader and a champion on litter reduction and prevention, waste minimization, and recycling programs. One of the programs that we actually champion and start is called the RAP program, which is the RAP Recycling Action Program that looks to recycle film through a retail collection program. And we've partnered with USMPA, the Sustainable Packaging Coalition in several states to implement that sort of program to collect things like plastic bags, plastic films, things like dry cleaning bags, that for example, like food would come in to collect those back to retailers and to recycle those into products such as durable outdoor lumber for decks and fences, as well as the packaging material. We also sponsored several projects in the Northeast, including several Saver Bay cleanup projects, litter reduction projects, including Greenup Day in Vermont, as well as working with the Northeast Recycling Council. Our members also participate in programs like Operation Clean Sweep, which helps plastic makers, shippers, and users of plastic pellets contain and prevent them from entering into the oceans and waterways. We're one of the founding partners of the Recycling Partnership, who I understand testified before your group in an earlier meeting. And they're a national recycling non-profit group that works to improve recycling at curbside. And we're also a founding partner and sponsor of Keep America Beautiful's I Want to Be Recycled campaign. We're also a supporter of the Close Loom Ocean Fund, which looks to reduce the amount of waste that goes into our oceans. And we're also a member of the Ocean Conservatives Trash Free Seas Alliance with the goal of advancing scientific rigor as we examine things like marine debris and exploring solutions to increase public understanding and awareness of emissions. One of the things most recently, a little earlier this year, that our members participated in is the launch of the organization, the Alliance to End Plastic Waste, which is a new non-profit organization that has committed over $1.5 billion over five years to help end plastic waste in the environment. Our members have made a circularity economy commitment to where we want to see 100% of plastic packaging reused, recycled, and recovered by 2040, as well as 100% of plastic packaging that actually is recycled or recovered by 2030. In terms of policy considerations that I hope that the committee would take a look at is really to try to think of and reframe, I think, recycling and the issue from something that's solely an environmental issue, but also think of it as an economic development issue and a landfill diversion issue. Recycled items can be very valuable feedstock for industries to be turned into either new products or be repurposed and reused. And I would think about asking your own commerce department or your economic development department to look at the waste stream and the recycling stream that Vermont has and try to identify what are the industries that make sense to use this as good feedstock. I'd also consider asking the committee to take a look at if further developing a recycling center like the way Washington State just established a recycling center that actually looks to actually be a market maker and line up recycled products, recycled content with the products that they can go into, to see if that's something that makes sense for the state. I'd also consider partnering directly with the American Commissary Council to see if a return to retailer type program makes sense. One of the things that we're working, for example, with New Hampshire Grocery Association is relaunching that program in New Hampshire. Lastly, I'd also consider asking the committee to look at recycling technology investment, things like infrastructure investment, things like phone grants that are offered by folks that make phone products. And I was also looking at are there demonstration projects that would provide the data that's needed so that you know where to target recycling infrastructure. Other things that the state could consider doing is creating better recognition programs for public and private purchasers of items of recycled content. I'd also ask the committee to take a look at other procurement laws. Our public buyers encourage and incentivize to use products with recycled content. I'd also look at the types of waste studies and recycling studies that your state already conducts to make sure that they're sufficient or giving you the types of information that you need to make good decisions. Also, and this is something that I know all states and communities struggle with, is the effort to get more and more uniform recycling guidelines. Consumer education and consumer participation is a very large part of what makes recycling successful and it's very hard to do that when different communities have different types of recycling guidelines. And so I'd look at it to see if there's ways that that can be improved and to ask stakeholders to work together. And lastly, there's no easy answers. If there was an easy answer, we wouldn't have groups like this together. So I'd ask the group to continue engaging with industry and other stakeholders in this conversation. My members, plastic makers, really want to work hard on this problem. We need your feedback and your dialogue. So I just ask the group to continue that dialogue so that we can help find the right answers for your community and nationwide. So with that, those are the remarks I have and I understand that you have some written remarks that I put together for the group. Happy to answer any questions or if there's things that you'd like more information on, I'd be happy to research that and bring it back to the group. Thank you. Any committee questions? Mr. McCullough. Thanks for coming today. You bet. I bet you aren't just around the corner. I have family up here. Good. My questions are around film plastic. Currently, certain larger grocery chains are taking film plastic back, if you will. And instead of deadheading trucks, they go back somewhere. So several questions around this. Is there an east coast central place where film plastic goes? What happens to it after it gets at the end of the line where that truck brings groceries in the other direction? What happens to it then? Where does it all go? How does it collect it? Yeah, that's a really good question. When film comes back like that, and you described it absolutely right, it's deadheaded back on empty trucks back to a distribution point. And then it's usually collected by a buyer there. And typically, they turn it either into plastic lumber, a durable outdoor lumber. Or there's more buyers that are interested in turning this back into plastic bags that get reused by the retailers that collected the film to begin with. And is that process on the east coast, for instance, or okay? The quality of the kinds of film plastic that are being collected now. So we recognize we have poor quality stuff in our blue bins, not film. And higher quality when they're in deposit. What's the quality level, low, medium, high of that plastic? So film, there's really sort of two categories I'd put it in. So it's the back of the house film. So when you think of when you get like a big pallet of something, typically that's wrapped in... Drink wrap. Yeah, exactly. That stuff when it gets put together in bail is going to be really high quality because there's really nothing else in it. When other things are collected, like for the stuff that's for the individual packaging, for example, things that consumers bring back, there's a greater chance that they're going to mix something else in there that they should. And so they bring different prices on the market, likely? It would depend on how... Bandos. Yeah, it depends on the area. Yeah, because if you're trying to make plastic bags out of it, or film, or I keep saying plastic bags, but it could be like dry clinging film, it really depends on what they're using it for. Lumber, it's a little lower spec, so there can be a little more contamination. And finally, we're becoming... Remoders are becoming increasingly concerned with agricultural plastics. And the issue there is they're just dirty. And with dirt, but also with silage leachate and other contaminants. How is that being handled, or is anybody handling that on the East Coast? Well, right now, agricultural recycling, it's tough precisely because of what you've mentioned. One of the things that we're hopeful for though is things like advanced recycling, like air recycling, will be able to take items like that that have contamination, like dirt and other things that you'd find like an agricultural setting, and be able to process them in a way that turns them back into a monomer, that can go back into all sorts of products. But that is a challenge, and that's something that in part we're working at. One of the things that I think would be great if the demonstration projects come about correctly is to be able to take things like that and putting them into like asphalt or landscaping products, or things like that where you don't have either human contact or food contact because you have to have that really, really high, pure, low contaminant because you don't want those things in there. Thank you. So you're perhaps jumping in the middle of this discussion, so I just wanted to get back, and we've had a little bit of a break, so just to help me, and one of my faults is I kind of set the table, even though it doesn't need to be set, which is a good analogy right after things. So three issues that this group has been looking at are a significant portion of the MSW Vermonters Dispose, our single-use products, about a third. And of that third, about half of it could be recycled. We have a recycling system that is super stressed out. Taxpayers and Vermonters have invested in 30 years into the infrastructure that we have. Private sector works has made investments, and then they charge for the use of those services. But with the change in markets that we've had, our MRF tipping fees are exceeding our landfill fees, and we have among probably the highest landfill tipping fees. So you cannot expect Vermonters to continue to pay more to recycle more materials that might be marketed, like you're saying, more and more of your products will be recyclable. This system, Vermonters are always stressed out, they can't take more into this recycling system. Something has to change to our recycling system. And then the third issue is that we have human health and environmental impacts from some of these single-use products. So we've got three big issues. And the list that I just heard you state, you know, wait till 2040 to get some of these materials more recyclable. That's a long wait. And then ask the state to do a number of things. That's my question, that's a long one to question, too. What is industry willing to do to help us across the state, maybe across the nation, with these three issues? So the first thing that I would really look at and examine would be what are the ways that the state can encourage demand? So what are the ways that the state can encourage both public and private buyers? And ask the state, what is industry willing to do to help with those three issues? Like I said, creating demand is in part how this issue is going to get solved. And the state is uniquely positioned to either recognition or changes in the procurement laws to help create some of that demand. The other thing that I think that I think is sometimes overlooked is that it can be a feedstock for industry to create new products or reuse products. And that's something that I think the state's uniquely positioned to play a role as sort of the moderator to help bring those folks and those sorts of conversations together. And one state that I particularly like that I think it does it pretty well is South Carolina. They're a state that really knows the type of recycled content that they have in their state and actually goes out and actually recruits what are the industries that could use this as a feedstock in returning new products. Ultimately, in many respects, it's demand question. If there was a greater demand for recycled content, then it would pull through on the prices and it would pull through on the different sort of costs. So you're advocating the state take the lead in all of this? I think what I've talked about are the things that would actually create demand that would help close the loop. Thank you. Can you follow up on that a little bit? Can you comment on who's using close consumer waste requirements in a way that you see as effective? I have some model for Vermont in terms of driving the kind of change here and I'm just there's always a scale question to you mentioned, for instance, Washington State and Vermont's relatively small. So I'm wondering about the scalability of that kind of approach. Yeah, so I would look at the EPA's green guides are a good place to start. So they're both buying guides that could easily model this. This is something that you could turn into a pure curvy guide as well, too. The sort of trick to do to do it, though, is a lot of times there isn't sufficient supply to meet demand, which is one of the things actually one of the Washington State reports makes note of. So it makes sure that it's weighed in sort of like a point system so that you're giving preference, but you're not saying like we'll only buy it if it has X percentage. And then more broadly, under economic development point you were making, I mean, what's a particularly good example of a state, a smaller state that was able to implement a program that was kind of environmental, public health. Benefits that were driving towards and also had a positive economic impact. Right, again, South Carolina is going to be about the best example. And this is something that's also emerging like a lot, not a lot of states are really looking at it this way. And it's something we're hoping to encourage more states to look at. Your remarks really focus on, seem to focus primarily on recycling as being the solution. And I, recycling is critical, increasing those rates is important, but it's not really going to be sufficient to address some of the challenges that Kathy alluded to. And so I'm interested to know what industry is proposing with respect to actual volumetric reduction of some of these materials. And also addressing some of the toxicity with respect to single use food packaging in particular. That is not really included in any of your remarks and I think that's a critical part of the solution. Those two aspects. Sure. So I agree with looking at the issues in terms of waste diversion. So putting things out of landfill. And as you remember when I read the reports that presented this committee, the majority of what goes into landfill is things that I would closely examine. Because like when you do things like, you know, when you visit Murph's and when you visit, for example, landfill, you actually look at what's going into those. A lot of the plastic is not the majority of what's going in the ground. And so I would look at what are the other things and how can they be better recycled, how can you take them out of that. And what are things that you can do to help reduce the contamination. Because one of the things that bolsters recycling is having a good high quality supply is one of the things that, like for example, one of the Washington State reports that's a part of the work cited list that I gave you is that when supply and virgin resin prices were at parity or close to parity, one of the issues was there wasn't reliable or high quality supply in order to meet the demands of feedstock and be able to turn it into new products. So that's one of the things that I think the state as, you know, sort of a form of all the different stakeholders can look at and work at. I think in terms of like, you know, health issues, one of the things, and I'm assuming you're talking about food service. I think that's one of the areas of concern as single use food packaging. Sure. One of the things that any food service has to go through is it has to be approved by the FDA to have that food contact or has to go through processing or to go to be used for either human contact or food contact. And that's something that our members take very seriously and we work very closely with the FDA to make sure that we're meeting those requirements. I just follow up, you know, I didn't, I, the response is really focusing on recycling. I didn't hear industry plan around reducing the volume of these materials. And then the other, you know, I think that the concern is that we've, it's been, we've seen time again that the FDA regulations are not sufficient. And that, you know, we're, they're not addressing emerging contaminants that have the ability to cause harm. And so what is industry doing to get out ahead of those challenges? Yeah, so let me address the sort of the reduction part of it. We fully subscribe to the EPA's reduced reuse recycle. We think that that is the appropriate way to look at policy. One of the groups that we work with is a sustainable packaging coalition. And one of the things that they have put a greater emphasis on is working with groups like packaging engineers to understand two things. How they can design packaging and consumer products that use less resources in terms of either volume, material, how you can pack it smarter, those sorts of things. And we also work with groups like the American or the Association of Plastic Recyclers that puts out education to talk about when you're designing plastic packaging or consumer product, what are the attributes and qualities that it needs so that when it goes through a recycling facility, it'll actually be collected and sorted and will come out into a bill that has low contaminants. So those are the two groups that we work with to directly address the recyclability of items, as well as how can it be, you know, quite frankly designed a lot smarter. And I guess the other question, the other part of that question was just what is industry doing to get out ahead of emerging contaminants that we know are causing human health impacts. So our, so it's a little bit different section that I work with ACC, but they monitor and watch like the different reports that we've seen come out with like the World Health Organization and several of the EU and UN reports that have come out. And we're following the science and we're following what those folks are saying about it. And a lot of what would came out about like those particular reports was that more study needs to be done to understand what the true impacts are. And that's something that we'll purchase. Does the council recommend or take any sort of, I guess a prudent cautionary approach on any of these emerging contaminants? For instance, we had some testimony related to PFAS and Vermont has a standard that's significantly stricter than the federal standard. We also had testimony about, if you're looking not so much at carcinogenicity but at end of the disruption that Vermont's levels may be orders of magnitude too high in terms of those kinds of negative health impacts. And so as we discover, as testing starts showing people being impacted at lower levels, the law can be relatively conservative in catching up. Meanwhile, there's a window of time where people are exposed at those higher levels. And we're looking at, in Vermont, at trying to reduce those kind of exposures. I'm wondering if you can comment on doing anything that's ever in exceedence of an FDA floor or an EPA floor levels so high? My expertise is born recycling and circularity. So that's going to be a little outside of my area. But I'm happy to visit my colleagues to get more information to the committee on that particular topic. Adam, can I just ask you if the industry's position is an extended producer responsibility or a similar model to manage packaging? We would want to, if there's a particular proposal that you have in mind, because EPR can mean a lot of things. There's a lot of models out there. Yeah, and you had some very good presentation that sort of broke out the hierarchy of what it looks like. So it's going to really depend on what specific one that you're looking at. So some of the tenets that we're going to look at is we would want to see any sort of fee system or fee scheme that puts in that contributions that are made go back into bolstering recycling that they actually will follow like science and evidence in terms of like what we'll address recycling for a particular area. And then the other things that we would look for is like it's something that's material neutral. So it's not picking one material over the other and it's looking at things like life, total life cycle assessments in order to make informed decisions. Speaking of total life cycle assessments, do you have data on that? I know that what someone means by total is somewhat subjective. And we've been talking about trying to make sure that our window of examination is broad enough so that we're not making apparently good choices that have left out maybe a cost or externality. Can you speak to that? Yeah, I have a couple of different citations that are actually in the testimony that I gave. One of them is the True Cross study and the other one is a Franklin study that would give you a picture of what the environmental impacts of plastic packaging and sewer products are compared to other materials and other packaging types. I did see the testimony where they talked about the limitations of life cycle assessments. And I guess the comment that it would have in response to that is when you were looking at a life cycle assessment, you're trying to compare one material rather you really do have to look at what are the objective measures between the two. Some of the things that was talked about in terms of, well, it didn't take into account X, Y, and Z, those are very hard things to measure and are going to be very situational. So what that impact is going to be in one area, like one geographic area is going to be very different than other because a lot of times it depends on, especially when it comes to litter, like where was the product used? Was there a place to dispose of it? What's the picture of culture of the area? And those are things that are very difficult to measure and apply on a national basis. Any other questions from the committee? Thanks very much for coming in. Absolutely. And I'll get that information to the committee assistant to get to the rest of it. We have more questions. We'll pass them on to you. You know how to get it over. Yes, thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. Have you scheduled? No, thank you for being flexible with my schedule. It's pretty much obliged. So let me preface by saying that I do have written testimony here. And however I know my limitations and if I try to read my written testimony, you will notice. But the fact that I'm not going to read it, word for word doesn't mean that it's not of value. As a matter of fact, I reread it and it's much more cogent than I would have thought I could have pulled off. So please do read it because my senses, my verbal skills today may be challenged. So my name is Christopher Loris. I'm the general manager of Foley Distributing in Rutland, Vermont. And Foley Distributing is not to be confused with Foley Services where people see a lot of trucks running around doing lit and service. Foley Distributing is a full service family owned local, it's qualified as Janssen and the business janitorial sanitation supply with a healthy dose of food service items thrown in that we distribute throughout Vermont as well as parts of New Hampshire, Massachusetts and New York. And while there are no industry trade groups in Vermont specifically who are comprised of distributors, I can assure you based on my conversations with others at one conference I was at as well as talking to our competitors. And our customers alike that what I'll testify to is most likely going to be agreed with by most folks who are food service distributors in serving the state of Vermont. Can I, sorry, I have a good question. When you say food service products, so what are the examples? Frankly, I think if you look to the bill that created this working group, that's what we're talking about. We distribute, for the next six or seven months anyway, foam cups, foam clamshells, plastic food containers, which would be considered single use, whether it's peak number one, number six polystyrene, clear or expanded number six. Likewise, a lot of compostables. And as an aside, this is where I won't be speaking for the industry. Foley's recognize our niches probably towards the Vermont model being more environmentally friendly. So we push a lot of compostables. And we push a lot of number one peak. So we compostables based on, you know, sugar cane, corn starch, plastic bamboo, and many models of anything you would buy in a convenience store is probably the best way to think about it, especially those full service convenience stores that offer food ready made to be taken out. And that's what I'm qualified as food service products as large as, let's say, pizza boxes. Great, thanks. So thank you for that. And I'm sure I left a lot of categories out, but I'm part of the subject matter experts. I've been with the company for only a year. So my testimony today will focus on three key areas of the interest to the working group. First will be an overview of the somewhat complex system of distribution redistribution of food service items going from the manufacturer through a distributor and finally to the end user. Because there's something else thrown in there that I'll discuss that later called a redistributor, which makes it extremely complex, especially as you consider expanded EPR, expanded produce responsibility. Number two, how the changes within the industry, especially in the last year, year and a half in the global marketplace impact the supply chain and specifically how industry related public policy affects product availability for the state of Vermont. Because that works into the product that comes into our waste stream, the changes that are happening at other states. Something that the General Assembly worked on last year by example is the disposable plastic bags at checkout that is being replicated as you well know from your testimony last year. In municipality, after municipality and state after state and it's creating a supply challenge for paper bags. I'll get into that a little bit later on and why bring that up. And thirdly, I'm going to address the potential impacts of extended producer responsibility on food service product distributors and our business operations and where there is potential. So within the industry, the statutory definition of single use product is broad enough to encompass not only plastics and foam, but also reasonably include plant based and plastic like compostable cups, food containers, flatware, as well as disposable plant based cups, whether that's as I said before. Wood pulp created from trees or from sugarcane and increasingly bamboo and cornstarch. There are dozens of manufacturers for these items that feed the single use product industry and sometimes the product is shipped directly from the manufacturer to the distributor. And then by the pallet load, truck load and we in turn warehouse that and set it directly to the end user. Likewise, there are times where we will receive that same item that we would normally get from a manufacturer by truck load or pallet load directly from the manufacturer from something called a redistributor. They readies that's the term reading is they buy large quantities of single use items by the truck load or pallet load, they warehouse them and they generally send them to distributors as we're trying to fill the gaps in our ordering patterns. Or if it's something we can't buy by the pallet load need to just buy half a dozen cases or so we get them from the redistributor. So that complicates the process a little bit. And again, as far as what I would qualify as end users or our customers, that encompasses, this is where I would try to read it, industrial users such as schools, a lot of kids, colleges, hospitals especially, are a large user of industrial, not industrial, but of single use food service items. You've got the other end food trucks, small cafes and in between a lot of convenience stores and industrial manufacturing plants that have a lot of employees. So the customers that distributors like Foley's would serve and in this area that also includes big players like W.B. Mason, Swish, Riker to Paper that used to be a local company and even the folks who like capital can even buy a lot of their product from redistributors sell it in turn to the end user. So I already talked about the complicating factor of the redistributor. Let me go into that a little bit more so you understand the supply chain because that impacts your decision making process on where you could potentially put the administrative requirements if you go with an EPR. So as I said, there are a number of products that Foley's and other distributors buy directly from the manufacturer, sometimes mandated by the truck load, sometimes by the half truck load, sometimes by one or two pallets or by weight. We receive those items as a warehouse set and then we track through our computer software where they go. There is no industry standard for the computer software that's used by distributors so it's very difficult to create a system as a plug and play to assess, measure, and determine and track where those single use cases started with the manufacturer and where they finally ended up with the end user. As I said, complicated by the fact that there are redistributors. We could have an entire pallet and buy from the manufacturer that we track directly to the end user or before running short we could buy that same item from a redistributor and the question would be who would be responsible for tracking that item. Would it be the manufacturer that sent to that redistributor who would be in our case out of either New Jersey or out of New York or out of Connecticut or out of Mass. And when we receive it we could send it directly to the end user but there are some cases there are other distributors who we sell to as well who could receive that case that could have come from either manufacturer or reD come to us and goes to another distributor that ends up at an end user at that point. So there are a lot of touch points if we're trying to track that item that could complicate EPR and I'll address that a little bit. And as far as the supply chain also I have to touch on lastly in today's technologically driven world the end users may not only purchase items that they would otherwise receive from a traditional distributor like Foley's or Swishwright River or W Mason but instead purchase it online from Amazon or another online retailer. We've had a number of our end users call up our customer service folks or say to our salesman we want bamboo flatware. There's a let's just say there's a co-op locally who wanted flatware made out of bamboo last spring. The only place we could get that to redistribute to them was the same was the same seller who they could buy from Amazon. So as the marketplace changes in product requirements change there are end users who will purchase things online that are covered under the products that you're working on here today. And that as I said complicates the distribution network holistic distribution network even more so. Likewise as I wrote here there are distributors like WB Mason that work with redistributors and will drop ship items where WB doesn't even touch it. Where they could purchase an item an end user in the state of Vermont a food truck could purchase an item or items from WB Mason. And W Mason would work with a distributor and that would be drop shipped directly from out of state where WB wouldn't even touch the item and it may you know it would simply appear on their books as a pass through. So it's a I came you know in a previous life from the world of cigarette candy grocery distributors where things are very cut and dried. And I was blown away by the complexity if you will of the distribution network for food service items and for the janitorial world. It really is not a problem for us to manage unless tracking and reporting comes into play which is a very real potential under EPR. That's a world I played in in the cigarette and tobacco industry and it was relatively easy to track. For this industry tracking items from manufacturer to end user would be extremely complex. And I share that simply as a reality not to dissuade you from doing the right thing not to dissuade you from pursuing environmentally friendly strategies. That needs to be done which is why our sales force is pushing that product. But you just need to be made aware that it is going to be a very very complex process for the distributor and frankly for the entire supply chain from the manufacturer to the end user to manage. Does Foley also have out of state clients? We do. We do. So here's an example. We do have a number of convenience stores we sell to that have a presence both in Vermont and New Hampshire. And when the phone ban goes into effect for coffee cups in the state of Vermont on July 1st if we have anything left over for that specific convenience store we'll ship it over to New Hampshire. But that is not the case for all the product obviously. We also have a convenience store chain we work with that is wholly in the state of Vermont and they've already transitioned all their cups to paper and started that last summer because they wanted to get ahead of it. So thank you for offering that because I can't remember if I spoke to that in my written testimony that sure we bring in things by the trailer load and there's no telling when we get that one pallet of 60 cases where they're going to end up. And I do have a matrix made up that I failed to bring with me and I apologize for that that demonstrates where a single product could go whether it goes into Vermont or Vermont, New Hampshire or Vermont, New York or Vermont and Mass and New York. And there's any manner that we would have to try to track. And then the flip side you have competitors who are not Vermont based who are also supplying. Oh, yes. And that's that's absolutely true. As a matter of fact, most of I would Vermont fully distributing is the only Vermont based distributor Swiss right River would argue that when they were just white river paper out of Hartford white river junction area. That was a fact that they were bought by not just an estate company but a multinational out of Canada. So there are distributors that can complicate and disrupt the chain. One thing that I did not mention that I should have spoken to is the fact that there are a lot of small restaurants that it's in their interest to buy their single use packaging or to go containers. Not even from a distributor that I mentioned, they get them directly from their food providers. The best example that we can all wrap our heads around our small pizza shops. Very hard to find one who is buying their pizza boxes from someone other than who they buy their cheese. Likewise, Oriental restaurants of little full packs, they get those from the same folks. They get their food products from many times small food distributors out of Boston or New York area. So are those, you know, are those distributors who are really focused on food and not distributing product? Are they even going to be aware of any changes in the system? Very possibly not. Well, so obviously you've given thought to both like the regulation and reporting and stuff like that. So have you reached any conclusions? It sounds like the only sure point of regulation is that the end user. Because there's going to be so many ways things could, so many potential sources of product going to that end user that it could be difficult to regulate at the distributor, redistributor, or other food service supplier level. Agreed. And the, but at the same time, having also, in a previous life when I was a wholesaler we also had a retail shop recognize that there are competitive situations where the end user, the customer, the mom and pop on the street, some of them are going to play by the rules and they're the ones that are normally punished and there are some who don't play by the rules and it can put the folks who are playing by the rules at a competitive disadvantage. And that's unfortunate. There's no easy answers. I'm here to tell you that the challenges that there could be. I do need to share and it would be a problem for me not to share with the committee, especially because it's in my testimony. The distributors do, however, we do currently track many items that we sell because we have to get an industry rebates from the manufacturer for price contracts associated with the products we sell. And we have a full time contracts administrator on staff and that is necessary for any distributor who serves whether it's janitorial supplies, sanitation supplies, paper, toilet tissue in bulk, hand towels, hand soap you see in any washroom that we have a full time person on staff who manages the rebates and tracks those contracts. So you may find the manufacturers pointing to distributors saying they do it already anyway, but it's not as easy as pushing buttons. We did an analysis and I testified to that here that it would probably for the food service items with the analysis we conducted would probably a .75 FTE, so .75 full time employee E, 28 to 30 hours a week to manage the number of hours that one of our employees would have to put into tracking this. And even if that's done, there's no guarantee that if we track that item, report it to the state so the state gets its funds it needs to build out the single use infrastructure whether it's recycling or composting. Don't forget about composting please. We would then report that if you will potentially under an EPR model that I was looking at back to the manufacturer for a build back or a rebate. I'll tell you that the data sets, the requirements by each manufacturer are different and it does, it would take a lot of work and there is no guarantee that the distributor would receive full reimbursement from the manufacturer. We're kicking things out all the time right now that we have to eat that cost when rebates have a zip code that's bad or if we don't provide the proof in the right format to the manufacturer. And that leads to the point of who's going to do the reconciliation for the state. There's got to be a regulator and I get that in order to receive the money the state needs to build out the system. Can I ask Michael Grady to weigh in on... We have several laws in place that are extended producer responsibility and the definition that they've utilized and I think all of those laws would probably not be pointing to fully distributing as a producer and I think that the Canadian EPR programs also are looking further up the chain than at the distribution level within the province. So that's my first thought about this. Jen, you might remember there was that hierarchy of manufacturer who sells into the state and there is no manufacturer that sells in a distributor that distributes in the state. The importer if there's no manufacturer, distributor, president, etc. So to say that fully would never be, I don't know if I could say that it's possible that they could, especially if they're distributing a cup for someone with a brand on it, remember that one. That I think that's a possibility. If fully distributing has that, if fully has their own brand they would then become the manufacturer right. Or if they were purchasing directly from overseas and there was no middle entity then that would impact you. But I don't know whether that is the case with fully distributing. Yeah, I know we don't have anything that we consider to be the manufacturer but I know there are some distributors who do do that. An example is one of the redistributors we buy from because there's been a challenge with getting plain white single wall paper cups due again to the changing marketplace and there's a redistributor we buy from who manufactures those themselves. So we can either buy the one that they manufacture or we can try to get a plain white hot cup that we could get direct from manufacturer or that they would redistribute to us. So I can tell you that though fully doesn't manufacture our own cups there are those who would be considered distributors into the state of Vermont that do. Right, and under their brand. Under their brand. So they would have to under an EPR program estimate their sales into the state and that's done different ways by different manufacturers based on your population and total sales or another actual sales into the state where they can show that. Understood. You know the reason I share things is as I have to reiterate you know we, the mission of our company is to be that environmentally friendly company that focuses on environmentally friendly products for our customers and consequently we want to be part of any solution that the state is developing to address the challenges that I've heard in previous testimony with respect to the waste stream and how things are ending up in the landfills especially you know it's hard for me when I'm on the phone with somebody or when my sales folks to push somebody or write down that we'll send you that case compostable food bowls knowing that that's going to end up in the Coventry landfill because there isn't the capacity in that service area of the state and sometimes the end-user are doing it for the really right reasons because they think that composted product is going to end up in a compost facility and sometimes they're doing it just so they can put a sign on the wall we use compostable products but we want to be part of the solution. Chairman and Kevin. Okay, thank you. Chris everybody in this building benefits every time you've been in here through the year. Thanks again, Tom. So I'm being a little naive I think but when I'm thinking EPR, the P is for producer. Yes. It's not for redistributor or distributor. And we just touched on this a little bit about who is a producer and so in a world of producer responsibility such as when gasoline or fuel comes into the state not every mom and pop or not every truck that brings it around to our homes reports all of that. That taxing is done, taxing if you will. As it comes into the state on a per unit basis. Now understood that's pretty overly simplified versus maybe thousands of products we're talking about and maybe hundreds of producers but taking you out of the loop and putting it in on the producers responsibility I can see it's still working the producer of the clamshell producer of the flatware what have you. I think I can also see you as David Dean would say the corporate view as a distributor actually on your way back from where you're distributing picking up products that are going to go back to the stewardship group location. So I'm kind of wondering if this isn't wouldn't be actually a economic benefit for redistributors and distributors and so that is a question and do you see the thought that would be the producers responsibility versus yours or the other the reproducers responsibility? The redistributor I understand. And it's a fair question and you know as you said Mr. Representative sometimes I have been around this building a number of times as I was talking to Mike earlier today comma scare me so I know how they can be used we were talking about appropriating this thing so what got my attention in the bill was I believe it might be under the definition of extended producer responsibility I think it calls out the word distributor specifically and that kind of scared me so that's why I'm focusing so much on that is because I recognize that under the definition in the law the producer frankly could be defined as the distributor and I know maybe it's semantics but I know that's what we do and it may be it's not the definition of distributor under the law but I know that distributor was noted there as far as the being of economic opportunity I can't dispute that as a matter of fact Foley's had tried it before I arrived codenamed John King with picking up bales of plastic trying to work with Cassella when it was considered a commodity and unfortunately it's no longer a commodity but I need to get your card because we do we don't pick it up from our end users we've got a boat ton of foil that we have to dispose of and right now unfortunately it goes to Coventry and if we can figure out some way to get those bales in his stream we want to do that so yeah if there's not an opportunity now Mr. Representative I believe they're very well could be in the future and we need to be part of that Thank you Sure, please After that we have time for one more way next witness on hold It's just going back to your question Representative my understanding is that if a Foley or a Foley competitor orders product from say Canada if they import product from Canada they are considered the producer, right? So they're not just the distributor as we're discussing in the bill but they're also a producer if they order from Coventry I was wondering if the seller of a Canadian company has any presence in the market I was going to say with our this is what I was going to add our electronics EPR program is we try to go, it's like a tree it's very complicated like you said just think about like a computer coming in the state a running computer you can buy it like many different ways and online but we try to go back as far back in the tree with that definition as we can to the manufacturer that way you have the least number of entities that you're trying to track so like with Dell you go back to Dell you don't get to every distributor or wholesale or big box store or Amazon or wherever you try to go back so Michael's right though it's how we would track that definition and how far back on the tree you can go and a distribution system is sufficient presence so if that Canadian company is trucking it in or distribution in Vermont that is sufficient presence we have a number of even Chinese computer manufacturers that are part of our electronics system E-Waste program that we hold accountable and with that we don't try to track all the sales we just do, we pro-rate it on Vermont's population we're two-tenths of one percent of the U.S. population so we say what is your national sales and we use that rather than trying to do all the complicated tracking and math and what not I understood I appreciate that and I do apologize then to the working group for focusing so much on that piece how these materials flow that's really important to us but like I said what I do need to say and my most senior sales rep hit me in the head if I didn't say it out loud is that and I'm going to reiterate because I said it once before please do not forget about compostables in this because it's clear that there is a defined policy of the state of Vermont going forward with respect to composting and some items are on a slow track and some are on a fast track but we need to make sure that those if those are considered single-use food items they're not forgotten in the chain and that infrastructure does need to be built up can I just add to that because it's a huge, huge, huge issue not only the infrastructure but we've worked closely with Foley distributing on compostables because there's so many brands out there claiming so many things and there's no policy for consistency and what either the public they've been caught with purchasing a lot of material and distributing it under the pretense that it's compostable and it's not so nationally there's work being done on that but I think the state of Washington or the city of Seattle passed an ordinance that won't allow will require only certain things that can be claimed compostable and it's very clear and as we move on towards the implementation of the food scrap diversion requirements this is going to be an enormous issue and it's a big problem for CSWD because we are one of the only facilities in the state that will accept compostable food service wear and we get an awful lot of contamination because of the claims of the other materials and Dave says hi so thank you okay any other quick last question? alright thank you very much for coming in we appreciate it thanks again for your patience and waiting for my schedule to read the show hi, is this Abigail? hi, yes this is Abigail can you all hear me alright? yes, so this is Chris Bray and you're on speakerphone in a room with 25 people or so and the floor is yours perfect, thank you I've always wanted to be a disembodied voice my name is Abigail Stein I'm the director of government affairs speaking on the app of the American Forest and Paper Association the forest products industry accounts for approximately 4% of the total U.S. manufacturing GDP manufacturing nearly 300 billion products annually and employs about 950,000 men and women in Vermont the industry employs more than 4500 individuals with an annual payroll of nearly 151 million and the estimated state and local taxes paid by the forest forest industry totals 14 million the American Forest Paper Association serves advanced sustainable U.S. pulp paper packaging tissue and wood products manufacturing industry through our faculty's public policy and marketplace advocacy our member companies make products essential for everyday life from renewable and responsible resources and we're committed to continuous improvement through the industry sustainability initiatives better practices better plan at 2020 we have the I have applied our goals our six sustainability goals including our goals achieving a 70% recovery rate obviously 2020 is after approaching and we're currently working on our 2030 to 50 degrees which we hope to roll out by third quarter of next year the paper and paper-based packaging industry's commitment to maximizing recovery of its products for recycling is real and long-standing in 1990 the recovery rate was around one-third as you can see on the screen about 33.5% the paper consumed in the United States as of 2018 thanks to voluntary industry initiatives and the millions of Americans to recycle at home work in school every day that recovery rate has doubled to 68.1% 96% of the U.S. population had access to community curbside or drop-off paper recycling services according to our most recent survey of communities and according to the EPA more paper by weight is recovered for recycling from municipal solid waste stream than glass plastic steel and aluminum combined so paper recovery has fostered a well-developed and dynamic marketplace that allows recovery fiber to find its highest value and use in manufacturing new products that in turn helps encourage more recycling which is part of the reason why paper is one of the most recycled materials in the U.S. today and this is through a collection commitment by many partners on the screen so on this perception of many of the single-use products that are identified in Act 69 is that their life ends with the consumer dropping the products in a trash can but it doesn't have to end that life our members are working to change the end of life for many of our products and some of those are artifacts a study of the uses of food service packaging was specifically recovered for recycling was completed in 2018 and our research document of the industry's capability to use paper-based food service packaging to manufacture new products and found that food service packaging is being used to manufacture recycled container boards recycled paper boards and away from home tissue an important aspect of any effort for sustainability is promoting the existing community program we believe engaging the community should come together with engaging manufacturers and industry experts in discussions on further increasing recovery we appreciate the suitable for decreasing the impact of single-use products on the environment and on the resources but we do have concerns that the working group efforts to create a BPR program in order to achieve the objectives may not achieve the goals eventually the practical feelings for the recovery of paper-based packaging for the purpose of recycling will be achieved and to impose an EPR scene in hopes of marginality could actually be cost prohibitive and to the detriment of the success we have achieved consistently high recovery rates a well-established infrastructure already in place to collect and process paper products and the industry the ongoing efforts to increase volunteer recovery make mandates like EPR on paper and paper-based packaging unnecessary including a state minister or to control the flow of material subject to an EPR program could disrupt the dynamic complex and efficient markets for recovered fiber potentially even resulting in less fiber recovered for recycling and introduce substantially additional administrative calls that would eventually be paid by consumers or taxpayers so soon we want to talk about some of the best practices that we have seen in the recovery need support to continue development and promotion of best practices and leveraging existing investment widespread adoption of the best practices including efficient collection systems and optimized processing infrastructure effective education and communication and appropriate support mechanisms can contribute greatly to the recovery success that's sought where there is already a well-developed infrastructure for collecting paper and paper-based packaging Vermont has the opportunity to increase consumer education to drive increased participation across the entire supply chain one resource for consumer education is AS&K's paper-recycles.org website which is dedicated to promoting increased recovery of paper and paper-based packaging at work, school and home it includes educational resources to show consumers what's recyclable properly on the website we even have more specific ones like recycling in the kitchen recycling in the bathroom things like that to help people be thinking about where they what they can be recycling that maybe is being missed additionally AS&K is an inaugural founder of the recycling partnership which creates public private partnerships that build community recycling infrastructure and provide technical assistance and resources to increase consumer participation the partnership recently launched a free online resource entitled DIY Science at any recycling program to use to help educate their own consumers about what goes in recycling them this is getting more detail on some of the best practices taking steps towards eliminating contamination is another important step AS&K has longed in an advocate for sticking to dual stream as it goes a single stream collection as contamination of paper products is one of the leading reasons why recovered fiber might not be accepted in facilities that would otherwise purchase those materials and communication in order to improve consumer recycling behaviors in addition to the recycling partnership we've also been working with Renate Institute on research to look at what is increasing contamination in single stream recycling and identify opportunities through collection and sorting methods that can decrease contamination another aspect is supporting capital investments and improving infrastructure of our recycling system using some of the programs that already some of our members are looking into or have already invested in as a way of supporting teaching use improvement both in eliminating contamination but also being able to use more of what is collected towards the purpose that is set to and these are not cheap investments that they're making and they're the kinds of projects that having to pay into an EPR program would potentially redirect funding from and potentially limiting to those kinds of projects that are continuing to improve ways of using the product and improving the product themselves at a minimum these best practices should be implemented before any consideration is given to approaches such as EPR that would destruct the solid recovery foundation Vermont communities and their private sector partners have already built and they're already some pretty excellent tools in action in Vermont which I have up on the slide I see you all are very familiar with me but I am personally a big fan of the recycle like you'd hear in videos that show what does and does not belong in the recycling stream because again it's huge for the paper and paper based packaging industry but you know there's there's a lot to be said that they're a clear and musical tool. Paper can be a model for recycling performance. The paper and paper based packaging industry has set and met our goals on a voluntary basis and publicly reported on our performance we remain open to working with others in the private and public sectors to maximize paper recovery and we believe the government can help support this market success by avoiding mandates and arbitrary rules that could disrupt the current recovery system we believe that the responsibility for materials recovery has to be shared across the entire supply chain and include consumers in that process the paper industry is doing its part by meeting or exceeding our voluntary recovery goals for our products and we urge you to consider promoting increased participation in community recycling programs and some of the other best practices I mentioned this project and future legislation will be based on policy to the benefit of the environment and best practices for doing business in the state and I'll just wrap by saying thank you all for your time and I'm happy to share any questions and we want to always be a resource as you all share policy on this important issue am I contact information on that last slide? Great thank you very much so this is Chris Bray again I have just a couple of quick questions from your slides you were in the terms of the percentage of paper that was beginning recycle but I think it said for a decade it's been 63% or better so it sounds like it's it's been relatively flat for a decade and I'm just you know you you doubled the rate but I'm just wondering if we've reached a plateau that kind of gets into what I mentioned a few slides later which is that we are rapidly approaching the ceiling for paper recovery you know when you think of paper people often think of more obvious recycling than through you know your office paper your boxes your cups but paper also includes wall board paper that includes books that includes certain things that we consider the yuck factor like you don't necessarily want you toilet paper or facial tissues in your recycle extreme so there is a ceiling and we are approaching that our setting the 70% goal has a lot to do with what we believe is the ceiling although with some of the new technology we've explored that number might be able to creep up some so I wouldn't necessarily say it's a plateau so much as the low hanging fruit the easiest get have been gotten and now it's really we have regular meetings with our recovered fiber sector members in order to discuss those practices in ways we can reach out those next days but there are some of our biggest barriers are frankly ones that are outside of our control like multi-family housing and how difficult it can be to collect there you know barriers where it's difficult to implement programs because of distance and that sort of thing and can you say something about volume I don't know if I don't know this world enough to know whether you're seeing increasing volumes here by year or what that trend line looks like now I think frankly our recovery rate is one of these on the amount of paper that's produced in years and then take that and it's the denominator and the numerator is based on what numbers NTA has for what is collected for recovery and so generally that based on both of those the denominator is generally based on sales and so I don't have a number on volume for you I can talk to my colleagues and get back to you that would be helpful My last quick question is the role of post-consumer waste requirements has, has that been a helpful thing in any case in terms of creating a reliable steady market for recycled fiber or has it been a great question and one that I would like to thank you for asking so post-consumer content requirements is kind of a double edge to our industry in particular the recovered fiber folks are always trying to make sure that whatever fiber that they've collected is being put towards the highest value and use product so if whatever fiber they've collected making it to recycle content product is the highest value one is cardboard boxes and that's where they would like to send it if it's currently furniture particle board then that's where they want to send it and so in situations where there's legislation that requires that the covered fiber content is sent to a particular product that may not be the highest value then in some pieces that can actually create a financial hardship for my members as opposed to a benefit it is appreciated that there is to a certain extent a I wouldn't say a guaranteed market but that there is value in that but it also sometimes can mean that the fiber that they've collected is being forced into products because otherwise they can't but all but then they have to use more expensive materials potentially to our products that may actually lead to a higher value ultimately and when you say value I mean are you saying that the pay return on investment yeah okay so ROI value okay great yeah um other questions from the table um hello Abigail I'm representative Jim McCullough thanks for helping us today could you tell me um would you tell me how many how many members um the American Forest and Paper Association has that's one question then I'll have a follow up on that sure um you know we have a couple of different package membership but I would say we have around 50 or 60 member companies that are in some form or another piece of product or people with these packaging producers um and I'm thinking you just answered my second question um about how they're broken out so you've got 50 or 60 um producer members do you have non-producer members um I'm presuming people in the forest industry are not members um so that's kind of a two part question alright well so you know that kind of depends on the company structure there are companies that are um you might say fully vertically integrated and so they do walking they do the whole thing they do the converting and the sales there are some that are just in one or a couple of those um stages in the process good thank you mm-hmm right um this is Kathy Jameson in Vermont DEC thank you for joining us today um we would be interested or I would be interested to see the data that you have because one of your slides if I understood it correctly said that EPR could actually result with less paper recycling and so do you have data to support that from um province or country or somewhere where they've implemented EPR um you know there are only so many programs that have EPR and um so I think more what that speaks to is the concern that um an EPR program um most of the ones that exist and the ones that sort of um were often laid out in the language of of Act 59 um would require um financial investments so the substantial nature by the producers um and recyclers of paper products and so the concern is that current investments that are being made um in recycling, in collecting and the budgets that are geared toward that um have the potential to need to be redirected towards EPR um to towards um participating in this program and so that that's a part of the program um part of the concern for us um I will talk to um my colleagues and see if they have any big examples to say I think it's a good deal you know our experience with the EPR programs that we have implemented in Vermont is that they have dramatically increase the collection rate of the material that's being targeted um Sure um I mean we can certainly see that being the case particularly in a program that um may not be um already structured um at a successful level um there is like a high recovered rate when the program has started but when we're already at 68.1 percent recovery rate um you know the some of that um we've already achieved right so I'm glad you recognize we have a high recovery rate because we've worked hard in Vermont to establish our recycling programs and let people know about them and make it convenient um all the recipe that people say you need to have a successful program but right now we are financially struggling with our recycling system as you know the markets have dramatically changed 40 percent of the materials from our MRFs are mixed paper fiber and the market for fibers is upside down people you know MRFs used to get paid for fiber now they are paying for fiber so right now our system needs financial assistance to shore it up or unfortunately it could lapse and we won't have that high recovery rate so I'm curious what industry is willing to do to help us financially shore up our recycling system yeah um so I mean part of that is um we are extremely aware of that you know we're some of our members are part of that and you know we're keeping very concerned and you know that's one of the difficulties of being in this situation with at times the rather broad membership conversations within our membership can get a little complicated however I will tell you that even in the last year and a half almost two years I guess since you know there's been some major changes in the recovery fiber market for mixed paper in particular there have been quite a few facilities that have come online that are targeting specifically seeking in mixed paper and increasing capacity in order to take advantage of this you know recovered fiber materials that are available on the market that are currently at a very early price but have the potential to be you know reproduced and used within the country where as they used to be shipped overseas and some you know a lot of you know and especially it's you know it's something I know that you know is very familiar with how they recover fiber markets work to a certain extent what's needed is time in order to allow them to adjust but you know our members are making investments in order to you know take more of the recovered fiber in recognition of what's changing and I think we're on the same page with the final aid of working together with capacities and not wanting to work with what's likely to cover partnership or their second partnership in order to find ways of helping this difficult market situation run right now Is it ever cheaper to start with original materials rather than recycled materials to create products for paper that's a complicated question and it depends on the market isn't in the market prediction of the industry and that's not something that I am comfortable getting into but I think that you know there's the potential to that to keep many different products at time I cannot now or any other time because I'm working government affairs I'm not allowed to talk about this okay any other questions from the committee well great thank you for your help today and if we have any follow-up questions we'll get back to you by email terrific thank you all so much again seeing your time thank you two meetings back I'd ask people to pause and list suggestions for material to continue to work so as an age of memory we have hard copies for everyone of all of the suggestions we need to put in thank you and here's the copies of the draft report so the plan is to take to go to pause for a moment and have people look through their suggestions and then we have this form which I might be helpful to us in terms of just going through the items that were suggested listing them putting in some pros and cons strengths and weaknesses about undertaking that approach and then a little notes field in terms of you know for me it was things to keep in mind like we know that we have partial information maybe concerns or questions if we want to stick into a note field and I thought in this way we could sort of do our homework together and look through the items that will go into the attendance section in terms of what are the expectations of how that gets used so we're not drafting legislation as group based on it and we're not going to end up voting on them like 7 of 11 said yes do this but so we're not doing votes for each thing we're going to list them with strengths and weaknesses notes on them when we come back together next week I think it would be helpful I think to the 180 legislators who are going to end up using this work product or this working group if we try to rank them in terms of opportunities like here so if you are going to if you have limited time which the legislature always does here are the areas where we think you would most profitably start your knowing full well even in our first meeting that there's work to be done beyond just this one legislation coming it will be helpful to start thinking about what's the long term of how might it be over multiple years, multiple phases how do we make some progress this coming session and acknowledge that there's more work to do after that coming session so why don't we spend five minutes if people just want to re-read all the contributions of the group and then we'll start going through them and doing the closing comments looking at our recommendations for inclusion item column item one two where are those items are they in the report with the big label blue one where are they thank you perfect we should be eating at a meeting I meant things from these lists so that's any one of these things could be okay I since on yours you might say this is three items okay good and people there was a fair amount of overlap between people's individual recommendations well then if accumulating a list of items okay it goes my front is going to take them and put them up on the screen as we go so that people can chime in and we'll create a composite document as we work our way through thank you this is Vandy just a question on I noted in the draft report there's a recommendation section and you said we're not going to be voting are we supposed to note concerns with certain approaches via the con section or how are we to articulate where there might not be agreement thanks Andy so that the concerns I suppose could either show up as cons on that pro con column they could also show up as notes so that would be two places if you had a concern about an item that we were talking about to put in that for us to record that does that make sense yeah obviously it's a moment when I can't see the pro con column but I'll imagine it's wonderful and try to chime in it is about ready so might as well just go front to back in our collection of suggestions and take them all as they come up and let's start working our way through and see how we're doing timing wise and we'll sort of pace ourselves in terms of depth on each thing so Jim's is sheet number one so we would for item I think we've just put in bands and glues plastic 80 utensils, plates and bowls I don't know if you have a copy of this yeah keep them all up as we work our way through front to back it would be great if you could increase the quality yeah we can add pro con's notes as we go honestly since we're doing this as a sort of homework as a group thing I don't know how our timing will go but I figure we'll start doing it and we'll figure out how much depth we want to get into as we work our way through so do you do you want to say anything about pro's notes I guess I guess no no I think those I think that'll probably become evident in discussion and maybe for purposes of just getting this out here yep I would just stick with this although since I did my established EPR for film plastics and the EPR for what is essentially the beverage industry plastic and glass as a group we've discovered a bunch of other EPR things that would be included so EPR for film plastics probably also be glass and plastic containers would also be other kinds of paper products for instance as we were just getting discussion today I think I think probably I would welcome the notes, pros and cons and nuances as we move forward and I want to make sure everyone else is able to have this opportunity so Jen you're the recipient of so for if we start with plastic eating utensils and bowls plates do you want to weigh in? I mean anyone can is the recipient of all these things right and I think that was I was just trying to tally some of the similar recommendations and that was another recommendation or somebody else's recommendation as well and I think that you know I'm not sure what the cons would be at the top of my head the pros would certainly be the alternatives would be compostable which would be beneficial for our infrastructure systems for waste diversion and I think Kathy you had something in about not having plastics or single use products that are potentially toxic in the environment and that are apt to become litter are these that an example of that these are but if we also want to tag on the potential human health impacts could we modify to the ban would we also include any food packaging that contains PFAS yeah yeah and with respect to banning all of the food wear I mean would we allow for an option that you know the compostable is that will degrade under high heat and I don't know if there's a product out there that would degrade under natural environmental conditions that would not result with plastics in the environment but that could motivate the industry to go toward that well I don't think it I don't think that it would result in plastics in the environment if it were compostable truly compostable right so even if it ended up as litter you're not resulting in micro plastics in the environment that becomes in the definition of the right so for notes can you put in definition of compostable yeah so now I'm going to back a little bit because the ASTM standards do allow a small percentage of non-compostable material so for example some of the granola bars so there's a big push from industry to move towards compostable even though the infrastructure in the United States is not even it's very little is there for that but for example the very thin metallic lining in a granola bar compostable packaging is so small that it's acceptable under ASTM standards that defined as compostable packaging so we would probably need more information about that so maybe we could put right out there I'll chime in in terms of the con there is no ASTM standard I'm aware of that can define compostable in the environment there are a few states that have created if you're going to make a compostable claim referenced ASTM standards for compostability but I'm not aware of any ASTM or any international standards that would equate to how we could ever define degrading in the environment but the compostable ASTM standard for compostable that industry is using for producing packaging does exist and that is allowing for a small percentage to be non-compostable but not in the environment but just under the general standards and is it correct to say that a con might be that we lack the infrastructure in the state of Vermont to compost compostable potential plates it's potentially more expensive as well right I would also urge at the evaluation of the life cycle impacts on that my understanding is that compostable materials and our folks make compostable materials but the energy and the thickness and the weight of all of those materials are significantly higher than traditional alternatives so maybe you could add in that no field the short version the shorter version of what Andy just said it's in LCA right full LCA life cycle analysis LCA analysis analysis okay Jen I would just note that Vermont conservation voters submitted something very similar to this the intent being that there's a ban on single use food packaging that is not biodegradable toxic free and looking at the statute the recommendations that this group is required to submit I think there are lots of pros for this one just reducing the number of single use products reducing the environmental impact and the health impacts you know improving the management just because the volume would be significantly reduced diverting these products from landfills and then you know preventing the contamination of the environment so I would just note that maybe a good way to sort of evaluate these policies is looking at the statutes and the directives and I think this one hits on all of them thank you for that so I'll ask you to keep your eye on you can keep measuring us against those as we work along thank you can I just add another con is a lack of access to products okay lack of access to consumer products in the in the short term at least if we're looking for alternative packaging you know manufacturers as we saw with demo labeling manufacturers we're not going to change this just for the state of Vermont so it's going to take some time for industry to find alternatives that can come into the state right and I think in general on that point I mean it seems like many things we've talked about that I sense groups interested in doing there's a question of how the phase in how quickly will the market or solid waste districts or haulers and handlers how quickly can the system adapt into our agreeing that we want to go that way so this would be a ban on the use of these items not a ban on disposal of these items is that correct sale ban yes not a disposal ban so there is one thing out there in terms of the con as well we had discussion on the similar bill in Maine this year and the idea was it would not move forward but there was a lot of discussion from some of the electron owners about if you're going to ban single use plastic items if compostables are not available in the marketplace then you're essentially forcing essentially forcing folks to potentially go into porcelain and glass and back to reusable items there's a sanitation question there in terms of the sanitation quality for food and whether or not restaurants are able to install dishwashers and staff and fish cleaning crews and like roadside bands and roster tracks and those types of things and that might be captured too in a LCA as we looked into the full impact of alternatives like reusable the energy using reusable versus a single use right so one of the things that we might consider instead of a ban on all plastic waste bowls is a requirement that a ban on non-recyclable, non-compostable because although because we have infrastructure for the recyclable materials and we don't have the infrastructure for the compostable materials so for example there's a lot of food service industry that is using the cups that are compostable and the consumer doesn't have a place to put those cups for composting it, they don't know that it's compostable versus recyclable they're more apt to put it into a recycling bin which contaminates the recycling stream and it doesn't get composted so the likelihood of a compostable cup getting composted in the state of Vermont is pretty low the likelihood of a pet cup getting recycled in Vermont is pretty high would you be concerned that people would put utensils in recycling stream there is no plastic utensil that can be recycled because of the size have to think about that part that would maybe be a separate and again the alternative is probably the bamboo maybe a note would be or a note that we'd have to carve out somehow flatware that's more about utensils yeah I would put a note that under the cons that would indicate that well the infrastructure is already there but this would drive use of compostables versus recyclable flat a serviceware without infrastructure without bolstering the compostable infrastructure that's already and then have an adverse effect on the MRF getting this material right and adversely affecting the recycling stream and then the note next to that would be the flatware is not recyclable in any recyclable at all ok so what was the last flatware is not recyclable flatware is not recyclable so if we were to consider making that ban or ban non-recyclable non-compostable instead of ban on plastics you're the author of that recommendation do you want to in many ways to be an added note um I think a note a note could take care of that in fact when I was offering that thought I was thinking the hospitality industry primarily as did our previous legislation be that as it may exploring it for all single use plastic bowls and cups and flatware whether you purchase them in a retail situation or use them in a hospitality situation would be irrelevant that might be something we want to consider actually we're just talking hospitality everything you know all of the uses so when I was thinking about for example is events that happen on the waterfront say in Burlington and if we have a ban on all plastic heating utensils plates and bowls then they can only be made of materials that are compostable infrastructure in that area but if that infrastructure isn't accepting compostable bowls and cups then that's going to get landfill that's assuming that it's not actually reusable utensils and events do use reusable utensils when they're rented and the provider provides them takes them back and washes them but yeah we are running at the risk of drilling really deeply here we're in the committee process for legislation we're going to go on just suggesting so Jen and then probably we should go on to the next one I don't think we're going to spend this long on every single one in all the pages because we're pulling things forward from other pages but yeah so let's keep working just one of the comments or two quick comments one I think just to remind folks that I think that the goal and the intent and the statutes is to think about how we move away from single use products not plastic to compostable because there are challenges with compostable and recyclable single use products and so I think that's a good way to kind of think about these recommendations is this moving us away from single use products transitioning us to a different kind of single use products that might be less bad or might be just as bad a different way and then so I'll just that's just my comment I think that I can remind you that reduce wind out overall over and over again alright so any other pros and cons notes on this one? I just have one that has onto that there's a hierarchy too of the setting and that the fare or the roadside snack shack is one setting but there are also established settings that use single use products and so I've seen it I think we're moving away from it but we want to drive that and I've seen it in schools I've seen in schools that instead of they've retired their dishwasher and instead purchased single use flatware daily for daily use that's an established setting where it's a low hanging fruit the roadside snack stand is a different setting context matters great great so EPR for film plastics just film plastics what's that? only film plastics in this column but but in the next suggestion it talks about EPR for essentially all plastic and glass containers so good point and question those two could be merged and get into one single use including film this wasn't meant to include agricultural plastics well it was before we got testimony how that's virtually impossible since we submitted those and so that could be a con don't have the capability of agricultural plastics right now yes so the first work that way through the columns a pro is we want to have their own idea I suppose it's a simpler system not to have a bottle fill in essence that's the end of the bottle fill yeah there are jurisdictions that have done that and then the EPR coordinator actually takes over with a deposit for all of the containers so it's a little bit of a misnomer when I say discontinues bottle redemption and brought their ass down on me from several directions but it's just approaching it in a different way so do you mean to integrate it into an EPR system a parallel system managed by the EPR system so it's like British Columbia so discontinues slash integrate bottle reduction and replace with EPR for plastic filming less yeah I think that covers much more would you want it to be an EPR for all packaging and printing materials like we heard about from the back in Ontario and BC um I think I would with your best advice well maybe that's the pros and the cons I mean I think start teasing out part of the recycling bin but not all of the recycling bin the implementation might be tricky as far as the collection of materials and the management of the materials if you're not capturing all of those materials so currently the fiber which is 70% of the blue bin is costing money to recycle and that's all the paper products that's all the paper and cardboard and the beverage containers and the food containers that are generating a revenue to pay for the system so if you were to have producers paying for the system and they were the producers of the plastic film and glass so glass isn't generating any right glass is definitely a good candidate but you're missing the portion of the recycling stream without cardboard the paper fiber to help pay for that system so putting the fiber part in the previous one where it says EPR for plastics is the number one above that sorry you go I think we combined yeah we combined that's what happened so then in that last one we have to add fiber somewhere where would we add the fiber I think you want to undo that last thing yes thank you there like we could add a new row or we could edit here we have this one sorry I got it wrong so this was the discontinued model of this right so this integrated the model redemption in the place of the EPR yeah for model redemption with EPR also to include fiber do you want to just say printing materials and packaging to be brought yes thank you which comes from the definition of the same word I'm not making you up no it's very familiar so one quick thing in terms of Jen you were saying that on the food 70% fiber out of food bins creates a cost 30% of food containers generate revenue out of that 30% what's the percentage that's glass and now in essence continually glass and a cost 20% so it's 40% of the material going into a MRF is paper and cardboard and fiber 20% is glass 40% is paper yeah 20% is glass another 20 is plastic and then the remaining is residue okay so the it's closer to 70% we have the fibers going into the MRF not just into a blue output of the MRF is around what you're marketing for fibers is of all marketable materials aside from glass that's what I'm discounting 20% is glass so we have a kind of a weird contract so it was so is that percentage by weight yes so for pros discontinued for printed materials and packaging let's start filling in that column it would assist with the situation we have with our recycling system it would cost so definitely assist with the cost so the stressors you're talking about was one was markets two was cost running the current system we don't want to lose our ability to recycle okay so there's both those pieces and can you go on? yes it would also provide an incentive for some of the materials to be more recyclable and less being disposed and made of materials that can go into the recycling system right depending on the system potentially a question I don't know if we're getting to this level of detail but we obviously heard presentations about the British Columbia system Quebec system and there's a different variable of control and how an EPR system will be set up to impact the pros and the cons as we've never done this in the United States it's a pretty expansive framework to create so it's definitely something to be worked through in some detail but for laying out our table for now I'd say we could put a note to that effect but I think let's not drill down so it's a good point but we should just add a note but I don't know how you summarize that the model needs to be developed for the United States for successful implementation in the US I'm not sure what you would call it I'm struggling a little bit with this one because this seems like two different recommendations we're kind of talking about the pros for an EPR for printed paper and packaging but there's a bottle bill component to it too and so I see a lot of cons with discontinuing the bottle bill but there are certainly pros with an EPR for printed materials and packaging so I'm just having these seem like two different things those pros for an EPR on bottle bill material too so do we want to just leave it at that integrate bottle redemption system with EPR system and focus on that because the recommendation for EPR for printing material and packaging is made numerous times in this report and we can tackle that separately and I think what I'm hearing from Jen is remove the word discontinue and integrate bottle bill I mean I think that there are several recommendations for EPR for printed materials and packaging and I think the bottle bill how you deal with that is sort of a separate issue you know or break this out into having it be I think there just needs to be a separate conversation about whether or not there's a you just what are the pros and cons of discontinuing the bottle bill and then what are the pros and cons of an EPR for materials and packaging because I'm just you know the bottle bill it's a successful recycling program it's working people understand it there's a lot of benefits to it and there's a lot of cons to doing halting that discontinuing that program and doing something totally new for those materials and their proposal is to even expand the bottle bill right that's all absolutely correct and this is part of the wrath that brought down on me with that word discontinue and yet the integration of bottle bill containers if you will with all other glass and plastic containers in an EPR has been shown to be very successful and that's so that that keeps deposits and keeps containers clean and is managed by the EPR stewardship organization stewardship organization right and that's really what we're trying to get at is more clean usable containers that get remade into other products and that is the cleaning of the mayonnaise jar and we always pick on the mayonnaise jar but that's what happens in the stewardship organization so do we know that for sure in the sense of is it going to be sorted and collected and cleaned that envisions more of a British Columbia type of system where manufacturers control the system and contract with absolutely under an EPR wouldn't those bottled glass containers still be going to a MRF whereas under the current bottle bill structure they're diverted completely is if it can go to a MRF and be kept separately and veiled separately so it's clean stream and managed through the MRF which if the stewards were managing all printed paper and packaging that would be part of they would work with the bottle bill to do that but likely for efficiency purposes I mean this is just a scenario it's not necessarily it can go to a MRF and be kept clean and not mixed in with the other recyclables so let's in interest of covering territory we need to cover let's leave this one this is your proposal so we'll leave it that way later on I think we'll encounter other ones that suggest something different like expand the bottle bill that brings your pages next so I think we just talked about glass right so let's I can see one of the tricky things here when we try to integrate competing things so maybe if we stick to pretty discrete categories as you have right here we can work that way through them so when it was a hard-to-recycle of plastics or jump right to a margin of emergency concern let's put them all in we would keep them all so we'll start with glass what your suggestions are for glass so I think it's been pretty clear that we would support some type of EPR in glass one of the struggles that we've had in coming up with adding more things either to a van or an EPR is that we're struggling handling what we have today that we're collecting and the cost that's incurring Kathy mentioned it earlier and so how do we help bolster the current infrastructure that we have in place and keep that sustainable and you know once we can get that done maybe we can move on to some of these other categories but we need to fix what we're already collecting today that doesn't have a market like glass like three, six, and seven plastics so that's why we added those to the list and alright so in other words they don't flow through the the glass could the glass we still get bottle bill glass at the MRF and then there's a bottle bill it's bottle bill material and even if you expand the bottle bill to include wine bottles we still get glass because products are made in glass so how can we figure out a way you know you can't ask the consumer to collect glass separately at their house they're not going to do that so what seems to work with recycling is convenience so if they put it in one bin and we collect it and then we have a better infrastructure to help clean up the glass to get it to a market then somehow the producer could help us do that alright so is the pro then that it produces a higher quality glass recyclable yes material and is there a con? well the con is people wouldn't want the bottle bill to to go away there's a system in place for the bottle bill but you know I think more a con of the bottle bill is that it tends to kind of cherry pick the valuable material away from the blue bin and doesn't help cover the cost for the MRF to recycle some of these other items so another pro then would be creates revenue stream to support next glass recycling any notes we should add which I think just noting the concern of promoting more mixed stream recycling in terms of the contamination other challenges that come with that I just think that should be noted and for you envisioning an EPR program for just glass or a fee or container for glass that goes into a pot that helps pay for the system which is a little bit different than just an EPR program I think the container fee I'm not sure how EPR would work with just glass and that's the question I have because what Jen was just saying I was thinking true EPR program for glass the producers determined how it's going to get collected they may pull that out of the blue bin system and collect it separately which is more ideal to keep the value so that is a potential pro it all depends on how it's implemented so it says EPR and container fee maybe it should be flash board yeah great how do we recycle plastics so I think this is pretty straight forward not a lot of markets for the three, six and seven plastics producers put their product in one, two or five that does have a market and maybe this could be where you kind of create some of the demand that we heard about earlier to incentivize producers to put their product in the more recyclable materials versus the ones that don't have a market so for a pro would be reduce costs to the MRFs because you would not have plastics and end up being just a cost to handle that don't have a market and reduce disposal of products that are inside right why don't we go back to the whole reduce thing right I think that this should say EPR how do we recycle plastics the recommendation is EPR how do we recycle plastics you had it on there you just didn't have the EPR if you wanted to do that there you go sorry a lot of pressure any cons related to it could cost manufacturers more to use those other residents well that could be a con for the LCA also yeah I would just put it out there we've seen higher administrative costs of the EPR program as compared to existing systems and also likely loss of control because of the EPR system the manufacturers are going to control the PRO and potentially having to contract directly with MRFs and solve the statistics that we followed from the Canadian models sorry can you we're filling in the chart as you were talking and can you restate that as a con please yeah to a lot of local control over solid waste and also higher administrative costs when a PRO is established is there a strong possibility of organic use and then obviously increase cost of plastics right manufacturing of products great all right and making sure we have as a PRO reduce waste to the closely existing right thank you waste I might challenge loss of local control because the stewardship plans need to be approved and that approval may actually give us some lock of local control but they're they would that would happen with the consent of the governed I guess you would say I would point to British Columbia we're going to debate programs and cons and not just with them I would point to British Columbia to interact with them as well okay so maybe next to loss of local control as always you could just put in friends I know just back in the middle there right whatever see British see British Columbia great contaminants of emerging concern this one's a pretty good Kathy added it up to the to Jim's packaging but certainly this is something that's all and you know we absolutely need to start going up to the manufacturer of this chemical not the collection and disposal facilities so you know right now you know the disposal facilities which is essentially is being tasked with solving this issue and that's the that's not the appropriate place to be challenging this and solving this problem so you know we need to go to the manufacturers and help them and ask them to figure out how to solve this issue right and some of those materials are single use products and some of them are not it would be challenging and you couldn't probably ever get all of them and then there's certainly some legacy waste out there too that would be impossible to get your arms around but I think that's why I liked how you added it to the packaging piece because at least it kind of singles it out in that in that use and in that if it's in food packaging that's probably likely ingested and probably a more direct intake than in some of the other you know furniture and other textiles that are out there so not necessarily just PFAS in some of the food packaging you know other classes of emergent contaminants so just wouldn't want to box us into that I think it's a really important point but yes it is beyond PFAS that's just what we're focusing on right now so I mean it is contaminants of emergent concern and we can't lose sight of that because there's going to be something else coming down the road next I'm sure but so it could be reduced for pro be reduced exposures reduced production and reduced exposures and contamination to the environment so PFAS is just and actually to all of us so and I think I would add just to make it explicit you know a public health benefit and just costs to the state for cleaning PFAS in the environment as well and managing it the cost is astronomical it's astronomical cost to the state is a pro it would reduce cost for clean up cons any downside to making this moving this direction I don't know if this is a con but what are the alternatives do we know what the alternatives are are there alternatives are there well maybe that's a test there are question I've got is how if we're to recommend action does this conflict with the children's chemicals program that exists at the department of health and the authority they may have to already take action in this area so maybe a negative well council is saying he does not believe so the chemical concern program is a notification program about the presence of it there is authority to ban chemicals under that program by rule and the rule would need to be consistent with statute so any if there was any enactment of statute that would ban the use of that chemical here I don't see much of a conflict especially since the consumer products definition for the chemicals of high concern to children has significant exemptions including I think food products I'd have to check on that but I don't see much of an overlap so maybe we could move that to note and just say reconcile with chemicals of high concern chemicals of high concern to children whose scope is just children so I think we're talking about it in there anything else for this while we're in there and we don't have cons listed maybe really think of one yeah so that moves us to batteries yeah so we just recommended that lithium batteries be added to the current batteries stewardship program we've had a lot of safety issues fires at recycling facilities and transfer stations where people actually burn to the ground caused by lithium batteries so we like to see them out of the waste ring we need that EPR just to be EPR's stewardship could I add and lithium battery embedded products because there's numerous products that lithium batteries that you can't separate for example vaping devices which are becoming more and more prevalent and people are chucking them in their recycling bins and those get run over by loaders and create fires so those are products not batteries so pros include increased safety for recycling programs and waste disposal facilities yeah so Jen you were I think you were saying batteries including embedded lithium battery embedded products yeah we need to have that any downside to doing that any notes we should capture while we go by well I would say for an EPR program for lithium batteries and battery-containing products the cost of the device is going to increase okay whether that's a downside or not just a fact vaping not they don't care right just a scoping question lithium batteries are reusable correct they're rechargeable not only a single used product so eventually they do get disposed because they're no longer rechargeable trying to figure out if it's in the scope of what we're charged to do here or not and we haven't heard from anybody in the industry and maybe we could refer this to a pending bill that is looking at making improvements to our primary battery EPR program and make the recommendation to that because it's not technically a single used product but it is a concern that we all have and I'd add to that as we refer to a brokerage refer to an brokerage in the respond pending range okay I think we've all been talking about the danger of lithium batteries when they get into the trash or recycling systems so I think a note could be this is a safety issue so Jin are you covering for Vermont conservation voters? I am, yeah so single used package I don't know sorry I'm sorry of course we're using both sides I'll be clear I promise sorry about that let's so these are all pretty standard for VRGA obviously our goal would be to avoid increases in consumer prices but also maintain access to products we understand the issues set forth but we also need to remember that we're not an island and we have increasing purchasing options via the internet so we need to take that into consideration who's paying for those products to come into the state how do you track those products coming into the state both online and out of state purchasing you want me to go through all three of them? well yeah I'm just while we're doing close kind of notes I don't know if the government speaks for itself I don't know if we need to sort of keep filling in the grid for that one unless you want to add something nope so are you going to add more nope that's fine number two identify opportunities to increase consumer motivation obviously we all have a personal responsibility to recycle the products that can be recycled and also reduce our purchasing of non-recyclable material straight forward and then number three just establish a stakeholder task force that could serve as an ongoing group of stakeholders to review the system and provide guidance based on industry experience retail experience and environmental experience etc can I have us go back to the notes box I was just going to put in complexity of supply chain and tracking yes keep track of that can I add an increase in consumer motivation in terms of cycle is that what you want you had in here education expanding consumer outreach and education in motivation so if that's similar to the bottle bill for example incentivizing my note would be question on where funding okay yeah same things like the more outreach and education we have for infrastructure investments for instance I think we can speak to the numerous stakeholders in the entire system that could help with outreach and education so yes okay without imposing a fee here at tax sorry are you going on to your third no I'm saying that stakeholders can help with outreach and education oh I see it's a lot to be a government responsibility great and then I think we're up to your third one so it seems like a pro to me is that it's a complex evolving system and we need to stay in touch with the whole community right I mean the markets are always changing so I don't understand what those markets what markets are working what markets are can we make this recommendation more clear because I don't understand what it's saying so I think that it's similar to this it's having a conversation making sure that similar to the bottle bill stakeholder meetings making sure that we all come to the table make sure that we all understand the impacts not just our own industry and understand that we all are probably going to have to make some concessions at some point to fix the system because it's a task force of all industry stakeholders and then guidance on departments and agencies and enforcement so I thought that what you were recommending is an industry formed task force that is advising government on enforcement no I would never I wouldn't anticipate industry advising enforcement in situations to note in that one thank you so Jen so we submitted a package of recommendations just because you know we think it's critical to attack this problem from a number of different angles you know the first is that we should be working towards a reduction in the use of single use packaging and products by date certain and so that's one is that let's get on a track to reducing single use products and then the second recommendation is a series of bands we know that some things are more problematic in terms of volume toxicity impact to the environment we should just move forward and get those out of the system completely the third recommendation is making sure that manufacturers are bearing the costs associated with the products they're producing so EPR programs and then the third or the fourth is an increasing mandate for recyclable content and products and so I can go into greater detail in each of these but just you know we felt that this we sort of needed all of these things to be able to really tackle the plastic prices and the going back to the the reduction of waste from single use packaging and products we recommend that 75% by 2030 and so this would be a modeled off of similar legislation in California that basically has a similar to carbon reduction goals right we've got a requirement to reduce plastic waste and the you know A&R is required to promulgate rules that would get us to that and the benefit of that is that sets a goal we all know what we're working towards but it gives the state and stakeholders time to be thoughtful and strategic about how we go about eliminating reliance on these products so it will be clarity and increases clarity of a state timeline of the approval right can we go into detail in the other ones or work through yeah let's just put it in you know we're clearly going to run short of time but okay we have another meeting to keep on working but I think if we rough in more things it will be helpful great the bands I think focusing on where we know there's a major problem and alternatives you know that's where we would recommend focusing in and we've talked about it already but single use food packaging and there's some other low hanging fruit like you know hotels, shampoo bottles those kinds of things so it's thinking about where there's opportunity where we know there's high volume or increased toxicity and getting those out of the system and then for EPR I think but we you know would focus on really two components one is expanding and modernizing the bottle bill to cover certain types of water bottles hard cider, sports drinks and juices and increase the deposit from 5 to 10 cents and then the second component of the EPR recommendations is packaging and I think we started to talk about that with other recommendations and I think that you know we've provided some sort of high level guidance on what we would like to see in an EPR program from packaging we've talked a little bit about that already today but you know thinking about how we would create a system that would have eco-modulated fee rates based on the level of recyclability, the amount of toxicity in the products and then I think you know we should put that in a note right like a modulated schedule and I would just note that the two components is the bottle bill expanding the bottle bill and then an EPR for packaging have any thoughts on the fiber or is packaging part of that? I think that we would look at packaging as being expansive and include that printed materials and packaging it did look at our numbers and they are 76% fiber coming out and you know consider pros for these is that we would reduce the amount of waste being disposed right? Yeah I mean I think that we really tried to tag these recommendations to the statutory charge and so I think that all of these recommendations would you know would hit those requirements in terms of reducing the use of single use products, reducing their environmental and public health impact improving statewide management diverting single use products from disposal and landfills and just the preventing contamination in a natural environment. So maybe a shorthand in the froze calm meets all statutory criteria. I think because we really tried to stick to what was in the statute would that be for all of us? I think so. And should we cite I mean you are talking about this year's act. I wonder if we should cite that I mean as Act 769 and Section 3 the directive to the working group is to make recommendations based on these criteria. Yes. Act 69 and that's important. And then your last item should that be recycled content? Yes. Recycled content. So what they put into making that item. So Jen I'm moving back up to your ban item. And you failed to mention today the package water for state municipal purchases. No I think we would still include that. I just there's a lot of detail that I didn't go through. I wanted to spare everyone knowing that we're close to four. I didn't want to spare us that bullet as part of the ban. I would just say the exception is where there's public water supply contamination and we need to supply disaster where we need to supply. There are challenges with that because we now have PFAS contaminated bottled water that is circulating because of the lax you know regulatory standards but yes I think that is it. This is where you're seeing two like challenges. That's a good place in the notes to make a note. Emergency situations. Plus because you've mandated if a water system is contaminated the law has said you have to provide bottled water. You can't now. I don't think the law requires them to provide bottled water. It does. Right they have to provide an alternative source of bottled water. Which usually comes from if you look at the other jurisdictions that have done it they build in an emergency conditioner or authorization. So looking and trying to see if we can get to a halfway point can people stay like until 10-15 past or do people have hard stops? I need to ask. Okay. So great so we've roughed out what you had in that section any more notes or discussion and then I thought if we could do one more then that would just be a three past. Yeah. In my head. Yes, please. Thank you. So under mine I listed options and the first two are kind of like either or and so extended producer responsibility for packaging and printing materials. I think we already have up there so we don't need it again, right? Right. And I think our preference would be for that rather than a fee but you know we had included both in case there was more appetite for a fee than an EPR program. Okay, so I don't know that we listed a fee version of this. Maybe we should. We could list it as an option. Right. So there would be a fee on all printing materials and packaging. The con is there is that there's no manufacturer control, there's no manufacturer incentive to do anything differently because of that fee system. Which they would just pass on for the possible product. Right. And implementation could be challenging because who's going to do it? Do you have a stewardship organization for electrophy or is that on the state? It gets more complicated I think than an EPR program. And then how do you divvy up the fees that are collected amongst all the different players that collect, transport and manage these materials. So it would be super challenging. There's something in it that you have more cons than pros. But I was just trying to like be transparent here are all the options. Okay. An alternative to EPR would it be a pro or a no? It ties them together too. Funding for recycling system is a pro? Yep that could be. I think that's why you suggested it. Right. The harder to manage materials I think have been talked about and the other materials that are not easily recyclable so I'm not sure if we need to talk more about that. You know I think the committee has discussed in the past you know what do we do with glass do we have it separate in an EPR do you keep it in the EPR program or do we move it more into the bottle bill I mean I think those options are all on the table with the things that we've discussed. Sure we'll be discussing them further. We're not going to solve that problem today. No. Bands from sales I think we covered that one as well and then the post-consumer recycled content I think that was the last item that Jen mentioned and that different states right now are considering legislation I don't know if anyone has passed anything but they're using dates out there you know 2025 20-20-30 with different percent recycled content for types of materials I don't know if we want to go it alone on that one I think we want to look at what other states are doing. So was one of the cons for that the availability of the material material. That's been mentioned before. No go down it's the last thing Jen mentioned. This is a big mandate for recycled content. So there's a question of all availability of recycle of material for use in recycled content. This is our chicken and egg discussion. If you build a mandate you create the market or you don't have to buy it. I mean some states are considering garbage bags so there's so many of them used that if we just did recycle content for garbage bags alone that would increase the recycle content that goes into the garbage bag not recycling the garbage bag. Looks a lot like plastic ag film. Maybe that's what you can do with your ag film. There we go. That's it. Is that quick? We're going to keep going. Who would want to stop now? Is that a question for the table? That's a question. Jen. So what I have basically proposed is what's already been talked about as well which is EPR for some of these products using eco-modulated B structure that addresses environmental recycling and recycle content etc. And also looking into the cycle content requirements for certain products so that's done. Okay. Stephanie on the phone? Well I'm sorry I don't mean to jump ahead but now that I see it I'm thinking of the paper. I'm questioning just to be sure where the I want to have modulation in here because many of us have talked about that I just want to make sure that we have a note. That's a note. Yeah and I think it may be for Jen's purposes it needs to be also a standalone. Yeah. So Jen would you agree with that? Yeah. So eco-modulated these these incentives maybe too. I think we're going to get serenaded. Holy I think so. I'm sorry we're not having that kind of excitement at this point. We'll I'm sure they're not looking at this we'll be wrongly involved. Alright. So eco-modulated incentives incentives and disincentives to reduce the environmental impact is the in public health impact. It's complex. It's complicated it's hard to know what if you're looking at LCA that's really it's hard just to collect. Yeah. It's just the information. It's hard to establish the criteria and collect information. Yeah. Okay. Anything more? Good eagle eye there. I think it's drift off the page. And also highlighting what Erin had said earlier the producers also being responsible providing education as well. Yeah that's a good point. Yeah. So producers involved in what was it? Education, like helping with education instead of it all being carried out by government. Right, plenty of effort goes into marketing and branding and including environmental aspects when there's something that producer wants to tout they think it's very good letting us know that it's there. Okay. Stephanie are you on the phone still? There's a limit to a phone endurance I understand. She was earlier. It's harder to be at a meeting for hours while I think you had to follow. So I'm flipping the page and I'm seeing Jen here on my version. I submitted this after Brooks had submitted and I saw a lot of input on the bottle drill and my intention of this was after an EPR system was implemented which wasn't really clear here. But I think for the most part this has been talked about. Okay. I don't need to continue. Andy? Is Andy still here? Okay. So we are up to your set of recommendations. Very good. I appreciate that. So obviously with the first one there's been a little bit of mention about what is our goal and the area that I've been able to get some consensus in is striving towards recyclability and if certain products are unable to meet recyclability goals there would be some kind of options that this is something that's involved in the California legislation that continues to be considered that the idea is striving to reach a recyclability goal EPR is a financing mechanism but it's not necessarily tied to any particular goal that we're going to reach greater recyclability and greater recycling of the product it's a financing mechanism. So I suggest that we identify a clear goal and what is that going to be and then what are the procedures or what are the mechanisms around that that we need to have in place to help reach whatever ultimate goal is here and again suggest recyclability of the aspect that manufacturers have the greatest amount of control over and have the greatest ability to influence within their supply chain. So for pros then we end up with clarity for all stakeholders and if you were to assign some any downsides to this were you just saying in terms of local control versus EPR producer consortium control was that one of your concerns before and I think it's more about it's less about what system is going to be implemented and how we get there but it establishes for manufacturers a clear direction that we the state views and again this is coming out of discussions that has happened in California and other places the state views recyclability is a goal that is going to be sought after and achieved and if manufacturers aren't that's suggested the goal is California 100% recyclability by 2030 if manufacturers are not able to reach that goal then they would have to potentially establish other compliance mechanisms. In the current draft of the California legislation that could include EPR but it doesn't have to and it could also include post consumer content as a way of reaching that goal as an offset or potentially other alternative compliance programs again for some packaging types it might be a store drop off program that is their best outcome you heard a little bit about the RAP program today that potentially if manufacturers sought to utilize that as their way to reach 100% recyclability by 2030 is a mechanism that could reach this goal of 100% recyclability. So it sounds like another pro that might be flexible means for achieving goal. Is that what you're saying? Yeah, that would definitely be a pro if we established that as a goal then we could specifically point to that to determine what manufacturers and different industry sectors might choose as options to reach that goal. Sounds like voluntary EPR for manufacturers incentivize voluntary EPR except they're not paying for the recycling. All they are is making material recyclable voluntarily. Well, they're not able to reach recyclability then they would have to potentially look to pay. So on the con on that it doesn't address the cost of our recycling system. It also doesn't address the volume problem. It doesn't reduce the volume of waste. It's a recycling. You're changing the composition but you're not reducing the volume. I think another con or the con could be I'll just say this first another con could be is only addressing recycling. It's not addressing reuse or even remanufacturer in a circular kind of economy which we've had some testimony about circular economy and the need to so if we're just focusing on recycling we're missing a large bite or multiple bites out of the apple. And perhaps they shouldn't put that in the California goal is 100% recyclability or compostability in their goal. That should provide greater detail to that but that's part of achieving the goal. I would want to see that and Jen I think you've got another word that goes in there as well. Reduce. I'm not sure how you mandate reduction and well you're not even man it's a goal. It's a goal for recyclability reusability or compostability I think it's what you said. And reuse would be a form of source reduction to some extent if that's what the desire is. Well yes in a circular economy you're actually reusing this material So I would have an additional con as doesn't take into account other environmental impacts so LCA so just because it's recyclable or compostable perhaps the non-recyclable material is profitable for the environment overall just because at the end it gets land filled it may have protected the product better or it was lighter weight and had less of an environmental impact. There's like the coffee packaging? Discussion. I'd love to see that in kind of all the recommendations obviously that we've talked about thus far. For the notes Andy you seem to know this number can you give us the California bill member on that? The bill is $14. $14. $14. $14. Great. Consumer education on contamination unless there's more comments on that one. Well I just have to get one to say some note about definition of recycling. Making sure that with that there would be a better way to move the glass packaging because it's recyclable then we'd be creating new products. Well the other thing is too that there's these different types of recycling like chemical recycling and waste energy. Some people be it with recycling and some people don't. So it's taking establishing those guidelines to that kind of requirement. I would agree we need to define those issues and all the other solutions. Correct. There we're not picking on you. So your next one was consumer education on contamination. Yeah and the reason for this obviously we all know that contamination is a major issue we've seen several presentations alluding to the fact that the contamination of the stream is part of the big problem and some of the solutions nip at trying to either move things into the bottle bill to remove contamination etc. I think one of the challenges for manufacturers is we don't control consumer behavior. No matter how much we try to educate move to the out of recycle label all the different options that manufacturers have available to them to move towards trying to educate consumers that's one aspect that I think we all at least I think could agree on that there's a lack of full understanding of recycling and how to reduce contamination for most consumers and there needs to be a conservative effort to try to educate consumers. Washington state has had a pretty aggressive program that has done some benchmarking on the impact that their programs are having so I think it's something that that should be considered and obviously something that we think could help move the dial a little bit. You know one thing that occurs to me is not very often have I seen instructions on the product I'm buying about it's how to handle it and is the groups you're working with have they talked about one exception of that is when I've gotten toner cartridges and they provide here's a label mail the empty back to us so it's a complete transaction all in one. I get to recycle when I buy the new one. Do you know if the groups you're working with are thinking about producers helping on that education so that we avoid contamination issue? Yes I mentioned the how to recycle which is run by the action coalition I can't see the exact date that that program started but there's been wide I think the direction industry is going to move to the types of labels as well as trying to make sure there's alignment between recycle and the association of plastic recyclers so there is and I think you will increasingly be seeing labels on packages directing consumers whether or not it's considered accessible to the ones and twos generally would be considered type recyclable others again because of the local control issues you may have to check locally and then for others it might be a store drop off or return to manufacturer type of option to your toner example the products that have a shift back to the option tend to be higher margin products or those products that are light enough that we're not going to be putting bales and bales of material into the mail to go back Question on this Andy was your intent that it would be manufacturers consumer education on contamination or the state of Vermont or some sort of a joint program I think it would need to be collaborative because obviously the manufacturers don't know the diversity of the solid waste system in Vermont so I think there would need to be a back and forth but I do think that there's both sides of responsibility and equation so I think we need to capture that somehow like maybe in the notes section education result of manufacturer and and municipal if you will or state program it's collaborative education and the recycling and recycling industry we can take hold of manufacturers there we go they're welcome sure there we go municipalities are solid waste management entities yep joint effort yep see state great all right and Andy you get to close out today number three okay somewhat self-explanatory but in our discussions and in my evaluation of Vermont you guys have Vermont has one of the most extensive solid waste laws in the country with universal waste law et cetera and obviously anti-littering statutes I think we all continue to be frustrated with the fact that consumers might still litter products or improperly use the solid waste system my question or suggestion would be to understand how more active enforcement we've seen things through the recycling partnership where there is well I wouldn't say voluntary but there's efforts to tag the non-compliant recycled bins and reduce contamination and create an essence of better recycling ecosystem through enforcement and and combined with some level of education through enforcement activities so to the extent that there are existing strategies on the books that I think are pretty exemplary for other states in Vermont understanding how greater enforcement could be helpful did you share with us was it your Atlanta doing sort of people were getting their recycle of their toters sort of analyzed and tagged or contaminated putting in contaminating stuff or maybe I just saw it in the avalanche of information we've gotten yeah I think that was doing from the recycling partnership that presented a couple of meetings ago that had information on that so yeah thinking something like that okay I just I think one of the things to note though is that because programs that we do have we have 72% recovery of our blue bin items the mandated recyclables which is pretty high especially compared to other state programs we can go out there and beat people with sticks to recycle more but that doesn't really address the issues that we have with the cost of our recycling system the stresses on a recycling system the reduction of it I think Vermonters are doing a pretty good job there is always room for improvement and we can do more to enforce the laws that we have I think that would make a very small and maybe this is a con it would only change the amount of material going into our recycling system by a small fraction and does not address the issues with our recycling system and it really is hitting something at downstream with the people that have the least control over the system I mean consumers have the least control over what manufacturers are producing and sending out into the world and so it seems to me that these are really downstream and putting the burden on people that have very little control but we are creating policies solutions and recommendations to deal with things like litter which is very much a consumer activity I mean the problem we are trying to address is that correct? Well in the quality of the material though what those materials are that do get littered and I think Jen's point is that we don't have any choice in what those people are purchasing because that's what those things come in Any other notes or pros, cons you can't see but I'll tell you the pros the field is empty on this one so we need you to encourage us to think more about active enforcement but what's your pro for that strategy? Would that level the playing field more for good actors, bad actors because those that are not? It's pretty level for residential recycling nobody gets any it's like you put stuff in a recycling bin whether it's contamination or not and everybody's treated the same right so in terms of pros in my mind reduction of littering, cleaner screen and more easily to manage materials coming through the system less contamination okay less contamination alright so any other comments on this last item for today? Yes, I think it's the only appropriate and he should be the cleanup hitter he's done a great job okay so thanks Andy thanks everyone well we have this really was with four and I figure that way John and I here with Stephanie and John Stephanie I need to go and did we was there one up there? There was I don't know if there was one I don't know if there was one so it's a much lighter flow we'll do those first and then wrap up next session next week or if you could just say one more so we have this right so we want to look through this and what we're collecting now is going to go into the appendix in here would it be I don't know if you want us to kind of oh yeah I don't know any of this I was typing a foot I heard from four different directions I want to send this out to the group and then if anyone has any yeah send me back so thank you everyone so right this is our first capture at it and we'll tune up what we need there's probably some things we can consolidate distill it and distill it down a little bit we're getting pretty close to a the annotated list and so we'll finish that next meeting and then that will flow into the appendix and the report so I would ask people to just read everything else that we already have to look for edits comments etc that we can discuss next meeting which is in a week next week yeah one week from today here same time same channel same room same room so thank you again everyone for staying and getting this done one day we're good