Extended Producer Responsibility laws, often referred to simply as EPR, represent one of the most consequential shifts in U.S. environmental policy affecting businesses from manufacturers and multi family residential building owners to distributors and retailers. These laws fundamentally change who pays for, manages, and is accountable for the end of life of consumer product packaging, paper, e-waste, and paint.
EPR has its origins in a 1990 academic paper penned at Lund University in Sweden by Thomas Lindquist.
For businesses, it is no longer an academic public policy debate; it is an immediate compliance obligation with real financial, operational, and reputational consequences. This is where we, as experienced environmental counsel, can play a critical role.
What EPR Laws Require and Why They Matter to Business
Producer Responsibility Laws shift the financial and operational burden of managing products at the end of their useful life away from end users (.. for example, an accounting firm that pays to have its dumpster collected where the trash hauler then pays to dispose of the solid waste in a landfill), or sometimes municipalities that accept waste (.. often residential trash) without tipping fees, and onto the companies that place those products into the stream of commerce.
In practice, EPR laws typically require producers to:
- Register with states or a designated Producer Responsibility Organization (PRO)
- Report detailed data on materials placed on the market
- Pay fees that fund recycling, collection, education, and infrastructure
- Meet performance standards tied to recycling or reuse outcomes
The stated policy objective is counterintuitive; that is, when producers of products bear the cost of waste management they have an incentive to design products and packaging that are easier to recycle, less toxic, and more efficient; as opposed to packaging that best protects the product in the stream of commerce, today often involving overnight delivery to the end user, ceding control to single large monopolistic stewardship organization (.. Maryland selected Circular Action Alliance as the single nonprofit PRO in the state), including hindering innovation and reuse. The loftier social engineering goal is the creation of a circular economy in which materials are reused rather than discarded.
From a legal and business perspective, however, EPR creates a complex, state by state (among progressive states) checkerboard compliance matrix. California, Colorado, Maine, Maryland, Minnesota, Oregon, and Washington have all enacted packaging EPR laws, each with its own definitions, thresholds, reporting timelines, and enforcement mechanisms. California’s SB 54, for example, requires most single use packaging and food service ware to be recyclable or compostable and obligates producers to fund roughly $500 million per year in system costs. Other states have adopted vastly different frameworks with meaningful differences that matter for compliance by a national producer.
Failure to comply can lead to penalties, enforcement actions, and, in some states, bans on selling noncompliant products.
Maryland’s Expanding EPR Framework
Maryland has embraced EPR across several product categories. Businesses should already be familiar with:
- Electronics (E-Waste): Maryland’s Statewide Electronics Recycling Program requires manufacturers of covered electronics to provide free take back at retail locations where their products are sold, and charges manufacturers per unit sold.
- Paint: Under the Maryland Paint Stewardship Act, paint manufacturers will fund and operate a statewide program beginning in 2026 for the collection and proper recycling or disposal of leftover paint, with a gallon of paint surcharge.
- Packaging and Paper Products: The most significant recent development is the Packaging and Paper Products Producer Responsibility Plans Act, signed into law on May 13, 2025. This statute requires producers of packaging and paper products to pay fees to support recycling and waste management systems.
The Maryland Department of the Environment has just released draft regulations, which will govern how this new packaging and paper products EPR program will operate and it is dramatically larger than the E-Waste and Paint programs. These proposed regulations are expected to affect not only large brand owners, but also certain small businesses that qualify as “producers” or that provide services within the regulated system. Public comments are being accepted until December 27, 2025.
The New Proposed Maryland Regulations
Objective and Scope. The proposed regulations in COMAR 26.04.14, Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) for Packaging and Paper Products, implement Maryland’s EPR framework authorized by Environment Article §§ 9-2501 – 9-2512 of the Maryland Code. They detail how producers must register, report, and participate in a statewide system to manage the end of life handling of covered materials.
Key Definitions and Coverage. “Covered materials” include most packaging (primary, secondary, tertiary) and paper products sold or distributed in Maryland, including beverage containers, carryout bags, and multimaterial items. Exemptions apply to certain infant formula, medical, and other regulated packaging. A “producer” is defined by a hierarchy (manufacturer, brand owner, importer, distributor) depending on how the material enters the Maryland market. The regulations also define Producer Responsibility Organizations and terms such as recycling, reuse, composting, and responsible end markets.
Producer Registration and Plans. Producers must register with the Maryland Department of the Environment and either participate in a PRO or submit an Individual Producer Responsibility Plan. Annual registration must categorize covered materials
Why Recycling Policy Is Harder Than It Looks
EPR laws are being adopted against the backdrop of a failed recycling system. Nationally, less than 24% of discarded materials are recycled or composted. Cost allocation is arguably a barrier, but not the only impediment. Recycling requires capital intensive infrastructure, specialized equipment, and labor, while the market value of recycled materials is often lower than that of virgin materials.
Contamination further undermines system efficiency. Single stream recycling programs can experience contamination rates approaching 25%, driven by “wish cycling,” improper sorting, and the inclusion of non-recyclable items such as plastic bags, batteries, or food soiled materials. These mistakes increase processing costs, damage equipment, and ultimately reduce the value of recycled outputs.
It is significant that despite Maryland’s newly proposed packaging and paper products regulations, there is not a single paper processing facility within the state. Paper products may be collected, sorted, and baled but must then be shipped to out of state mills (.. because Maryland environmental laws would not permit a recycling facility), nearly all of which are overseas, for recycling. The environmental efficacy of transporting that recycling and processing it somewhere else is an issue.
Recycling also has environmental tradeoffs. Paper recycling consumes large amounts of potable water and chemicals; plastic recycling can release pollutants. While recycling is preferable to landfilling, solid waste collection in Maryland has been largely operated by local governments since the late 1880s; it is not a silver bullet.
Well designed EPR programs (.. possibly good examples are in battery recycling) must balance environmental benefit, economic feasibility, and practical implementation. An interesting example is the Washington Department of Ecology adopted new rule, the Battery Stewardship Program, to implement requirements under Washington’s battery EPR law that takes effect on January 16, 2026. Other states, including Maryland, are considering battery and battery containing product EPRs.
The Attorney’s Role in EPR Compliance and Strategy
We have worked in this space for more than a decade, including structuring one of the earliest Producer Responsibility Organizations. An environmental attorney does far more than interpret statutory language.
In this substantive space, we have experience working with businesses, including in the US Green Building Council’s TRUE Zero Waste Certification Program, where we have assisted organizations in developing a framework for drastically reducing waste, aiming for more than 90% diversion from landfills.
A Critical Moment for Maryland Businesses
Maryland’s proposed paper and packaging regulations will be expensive to comply with, costs that will be passed onto Maryland consumers, and will certainly not deliver commensurate environmental benefits. That makes participation in the current rulemaking process especially important. Businesses, from multi family residential to retailers, that remain silent now may find themselves locked into a regulatory structure that is costly, rigid, and difficult to unwind later.
Maryland’s EPR is actually designed to be a revenue source for government and nothing more. Does anyone think the Maryland Paint Stewardship Act has resulted in paint manufacturers changing the “design products and packaging that are easier to recycle, less toxic, and more efficient ..” or does a gallon of paint still look like a gallon of paint, just with a new 99 cent fee on every can? Moreover, the Maryland law does not have eco modulation features with bonuses for recycled content, bio based materials, or the like.
EPR is not going away, in Blue states, despite being bad public policy. For businesses, the question is whether compliance will be reactive and fragmented or strategic, informed, and legally defensible. Engaging experienced environmental counsel early may be the difference between treating EPR as an unmanaged cost center or utilizing it as an opportunity to reduce risk, influence policy, and plan intelligently.
The alternative attributed to Thomas Lindquist is embracing the concept that if a consumer product cannot be reused or recycled at the end of its life, then it should not be sold at all.
Note that the content above has been generated by an artificial intelligence language model transcribing and combining my comments as a guest on a podcast last week. My words may not be entirely error free, and should you have questions, please reach out to me.
_________________________
Join us for the next in our webinar series at the Intersection of Business, Science, and Law, “Exposomics is the Environmental Issue Your Business Should Take Seriously” on Tues, Jan 20 at 9 am. The webinar is complimentary, but you must register here.