First Statewide Mattress Recycling Program Launches

Connecticut has launched the country’s first statewide mattress recycling program. The program — which has become a model for other states — requires retailers to collect a small fee from consumers and use it for mattress recycling efforts.

In other recycling legislation news, Upstream a US-based environmental organization, has released model legislation that state legislatures can adopt to through shared responsibility for packaging.

Like the mattress recycling laws, Upstream’s model legislation relies on extended producer responsibility (EPR), a public policy approach that creates a framework for consumer goods companies to mitigate the environmental impacts of their products and packaging.

The “Shared Responsibility for Packaging” legislation would:

• Create a Sustainable Packaging Trust to receive funds from producers of packaging to be used toward achieving a recycling rate of 75 percent by weight for all household packaging.
• The Trust will be administered by a newly created Sustainable Packaging Authority, which will be governed by a board of directors whose membership will include:
• Producers of products or product packaging, city and county solid waste agencies, recycling and solid waste collection companies, manufacturers and end-users receiving recyclable materials, and statewide environmental organizations.