Tennessee Environmental Council urges extended producer responsibility, highlights recycling and restoration programs

The Tennessee Environmental Council told the Senate Energy, Agriculture and Natural Resources Committee that Tennessee faces a landfill-capacity problem and an economic opportunity if the state adopts an extended producer responsibility policy and expands recycling infrastructure.

At the committee meeting, a Tennessee Environmental Council representative summarized the organization’s statewide recycling roundups, tree-planting and watershed restoration programs and urged lawmakers to consider producer-funded recycling to capture materials that manufacturers need.

The council representative said, “Tennessee urgently does need an extended producer responsibility policy that would solve this, that would connect all those dots we saw, that would pull the materials out of our landfills, create thousands of jobs every year, and millions of dollars in revenue to support that industry.”

Why it matters: presenters told senators that much of Tennessee’s municipal waste is recoverable and that manufacturers in the state — including aluminum and glass users — want more post-consumer material. For producers and recyclers, capturing that material could reduce pressure on landfills while supplying…