State session shifts costs to producers; Thurston County solid waste managers prepare for multi-year implementation

Travis Dutton, a policy coordinator with the Washington State Association of Counties, told the Thurston County Solid Waste Advisory Committee that the 2025 Legislature passed several bills expected to reshape county solid-waste programs and that many related policy debates will continue into 2026.

Dutton said one of the largest changes is a statewide extended-producer-responsibility (EPR) law for product packaging and printed paper products (referred to in his presentation as the Recycling Renewal Act). Under that law, producers must organize and fund collection and recycling programs; counties will participate in planning and implementation but producers will bear much of the funding responsibility.

The county-level impact will unfold over years: Dutton said the law requires needs assessments, planning work and stakeholder engagement before the program is implemented, and he expects counties to hear more about the program over the next five years as details develop.

The legislation package also included a right-to-repair measure for electronics manufacturers and changes tied to organics management, most notably a requirement that carts and containers meet statewide color standards to be consistent across jurisdictions. The session produced multiple bills focused on litter and on enforcement at landfills and solid-waste facilities; Dutton said several litter bills passed but that enforcement and funding gaps remain.

On funding, Dutton said the Washington solid-waste manager group pushed for more diverse and stable revenue sources. One legislative proposal the group supported this year would change how the solid-waste collection tax (a sales-and-use tax on collection services often visible on service invoices) is used and create a funding stream more directly targeted to solid-waste programs. Dutton described House Bill 2018 as a sizeable funding proposal introduced late in the session; he said work on that proposal will continue in 2026 to make it more stakeholder-informed and more likely to pass.

Dutton said bottle-deposit proposals did not pass in 2025 but remain under study as part of the statewide EPR work. He also said there were early-stage EPR proposals for clothing and textiles and discussion around an EPR approach for household hazardous waste in some counties; those topics may reappear in future sessions.

Committee members asked whether counties should expect immediate operational changes. Dutton said residents should not expect abrupt changes to curbside services; instead, counties and producers will work through planning and Phase-in steps, and some jurisdictions may see new items added to curbside recycling lists over time or cost impacts shift from local ratepayers to producers.

Dutton closed by urging local program managers and elected officials to stay engaged in the multiyear implementation process and noting that the county solid-waste manager group will continue convening workshops and technical sessions on EPR and related bills.