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Committee hears split testimony on recycling bills: needs assessment versus full EPR program
Summary
Two competing recycling bills — one requiring a Department of Ecology needs assessment and one establishing a producer responsibility organization — prompted robust testimony from recyclers, waste haulers, brand producers and local governments.
Two related measures on recycling and producer responsibility drew the committee's longest public hearing of the day.
Substitute House Bill 1071 (briefed by Jacob Lipson and Dan Jones) directs the Department of Ecology to carry out a statewide needs assessment of the recycling system, create lists of materials suitable for curbside/residential drop‑off collection by 2026, oversee producer registration and reporting, form advisory bodies and task forces (including on misleading recyclability claims), and set post‑consumer recycled content rules for additional categories of plastic. Ecology staff described multi‑million dollar costs from the climate commitment account, recycled content account and other funds to implement needs assessments and rulemaking; local governments would have indeterminate costs to participate on advisory bodies.
Substitute House Bill 1150 (a separate EPR proposal) would require producers of covered packaging and paper…
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