Puget Soundkeeper and the Plastic Free Washington / Washington Sin Plástico coalition supported ReWRAP, a packaging producer responsibility bill, during the 2024 legislative session. The bill did not pass this session, but it continued to make important strides and gain momentum.
ReWRAP aims to bring packaging producer responsibility to Washington, meaning that packaging manufacturers will be responsible for paying for the full lifecycle of their products, including disposal and recycling. ReWRAP would also improve equity in curbside recycling across the state, create a statewide list of household recyclables, and require truth in advertising for packaging products. This means that the ubiquitous “chasing arrows” symbol could only be used on packaging that is actually recyclable.
Soundkeeper spoke with coalition member, Heather Trim, Executive Director of Zero Waste Washington, about ReWRAP’s progress, lessons learned, and next steps for the bill.
PSK: The Plastic Free Washington / Washington Sin Plástico (PFW) coalition has run several versions of this bill over the past few years. What made 2024 different?
HT: There was tremendous grassroots support this year, which was felt positively by the legislators.
2024’s ReWRAP was sponsored by Representative Liz Berry, and it was different from the 2023 WRAP Act in that we had support from the labor community for the first time. They were particularly interested in the new jobs that would be created through a modernized recycling system, which extends to more people in Washington State.
The legislators also separated the “bottle bill” into its own bill, so bottle recycling would be addressed separately. Representative Stonier sponsored the bottle bill.
PSK: When PFW briefed us before our 2024 Lobby Day, we learned about a competing bill. Can you explain what that was?
HT: Representative Fey sponsored the competing bill. This bill was the waste industry’s preferred alternative. This bill took pieces out of ReWRAP that the waste industry likes—for example, pieces of the bill that were oriented toward profit—but did not include the extended producer responsibility component. From PFW’s perspective, the problem with the alternative bill was that it only addressed the demand side, not the supply side, of the recycling system.
We need to make sure that the supply side is included so that clean materials come into the recycling system and can be processed and sold. We need to address consumer education and waste reduction.
PSK: Can you describe some of the roadblocks PFW had to overcome in bringing ReWRAP to the 2024 legislative session?
HT: The bill did become smaller by removing the bottle component. Legislators thought that keeping the two topics together in one bill made the whole thing too big, and too complicated. This change allowed us to discuss each topic separately and coalesce similar, but slightly different stakeholders.
The key environmental concerns for the ReWRAP bill were maintained, such as allowing chemical recycling only if it has higher environmental justice and human health protections than existing mechanical recycling. We also maintained a reuse incentivization and plastic source reduction. In general, PFW is very concerned with reducing plastic and making sure that plastic is recycled well, and responsibly.
PSK: What’s next for ReWRAP?
HT: The bill did very well this year and we’re excited bring it back next year. There was a really robust discussion about the bottle bill that highlighted areas where more stakeholder work is needed. The legislature requested new polling in 2023, and the results show high public support for waste reduction across the state, and high public support for access to quality recycling funded by manufacturers.