PRODUCT STEWARDSHIP INSTITUTE INC
One Beacon Street Suite 1500, Boston, MA 02108 www.productstewardship.us

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Organizations Filed Purposes: To safeguard the welfare of people and the planet by minimizing the health and environmental impacts of consumer products and packaging across their lifecycle. PSI convenes key stakeholders from the private and public sectors to develop solutions in a collaborative manner with a focus on producers assuming primary financial and managerial responsibility for reusing, recycling, and safely managing the products they create.

PSI's mission is to safeguard the welfare of people and the planet by minimizing the health and environmental impacts of consumer products and packaging across their lifecycle. PSI convenes key stakeholders from the private and public sectors to develop solutions in a collaborative manner with a focus on producers assuming primary financial and managerial responsibility for reusing, recycling, and safely managing the products they create. PSI is a nationally recognized leader with experience in more than 20 product categories that comprise the waste stream, including packaging, plastics, carpet, mattresses, batteries, electronics, solar panels, HHW, textiles, pharmaceuticals, sharps, and paint. With a robust membership base of 47 state governments and hundreds of local governments, as well as partnerships with 120 companies, organizations, universities, and non-U.S. governments, PSI forges consensus around solutions that work for both business and the environment.

Packaging & Marine Debris: In FY20, PSI continued our national education campaign-the Sustainable Packaging for a Circular Economy Initiative-to advance and promote product stewardship systems for packaging recovery and recycling. These educational activities significantly contributed to the development of packaging producer responsibility initiatives in nearly a dozen states and at the federal level. In March 2020, PSI released a comprehensive research report, Extended Producer Responsibility for Packaging and Paper Products (EPR for PPP). The report covers the history of EPR for PPP across Europe and Canada, the growing momentum in the U.S., and the various models of EPR for packaging that exist in four Canadian provinces, including a detailed case study of British Columbia's packaging stewardship program. PSI developed the report through months of in-depth research and expert input from PSI's members and partners across the world and the final draft was then peer-reviewed by over 20 EPR experts. The report, which presented a factual account of leading EPR systems, has been downloaded over 1,500 times since its initial release in March of 2020. PSI's policy experts also presented on packaging recycling and stewardship programs at over 100 conferences, webinars, government meetings, educational workshops and one-on-one conversations with key influencers and decision-makers representing government, the waste and recycling industry, packaging brand owners, and producer associations. These conversations extended to the Plastics Pollution Coalition and legislators working at the federal level to introduce the Break Free From Plastic Pollution Act, for which PSI helped develop the EPR elements that are at the core of the legislation. Based on the growing recognition of PSI as the country's lead technical expert on EPR systems, the Flexible Packaging Association (FPA ) engaged PSI to design and facilitate a multi-meeting national dialogue on packaging producer responsibility among FPA and PSI members. The dialogue marked the first time in the U.S. that producers of flexible packaging, state and local government agencies, environmental groups, and recyclers have collaborated to discuss a regulatory framework for transforming the U.S. packaging materials management system. The dialogue, most of which was conducted during FY20, has since resulted in an agreement on eight elements of an EPR program for packaging and paper products (PPP) that includes flexibles. This agreement formed the basis for EPR for PPP discussions in numerous states where PSI is working with its state and local government members. PSI also developed an online toolkit featuring educational materials on packaging producer responsibility to inform key stakeholders about EPR for PPP and to help them educate others in turn. These materials include (1) A 4-part global webinar series which began in FY20 and continued into FY21. The webinars covered key topics such as how to incentivize producers to incorporate design for environment into product and packaging production, vertical integration, ensuring fair competition, and case studies of actual packaging EPR systems; (2) two graphics, started in FY20 but completed in FY21, one of which depicts the flow of materials and money in an EPR for PPP system and the other which depicts the benefits to various stakeholders in an EPR system; (3) several slide decks on packaging EPR tailored to specific audiences (e.g., government policy staff, general public, waste management industry, producers), each describing what EPR for PPP is and how it works which have been used by Psi members nationwide to educate others; and (4) a general fact sheet on EPR for PPP. PSI also published blog posts and op-eds and received media attention in numerous publications. In addition to advancing EPR for packaging, PSI tracked the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on plastic bag bans and other single-use plastic policies. Our crowd-sourced tracker was a resource to hundreds of local governments, environmental advocates, and other recycling and waste management professionals across the country and was sited by numerous publications including VICE News. PSI also worked with restaurants in Buffalo, NY to help them reduce their plastic footprint. When COVID-19 hit, PSI pivoted quickly to provide our dining partners with resources for reducing single-use plastics while switching to take-out service. The project resulted in updates to our how-to guide, Five Easy Steps to Reduce Plastic & Benefit Your Business and additional resources in PSI's online plastics source reduction hub. The guide has been downloaded by hundreds of organizations since publication in June 2020.

Paint: In 2020, PSI continued to educate stakeholders about the PaintCare program, an industry-run stewardship organization responsible for recycling paint in 10 states and the District of Columbia. The PaintCare program is based on a model PSI mediated more than a decade ago through a multi-stakeholder, consensus-based process with government, industry, and environmental groups. In spring 2020, PSI held a virtual meeting for Missouri stakeholders attended by nearly 70 key stakeholders with a vested interest in paint management in Missouri Illinois. The meeting outlined the challenges of paint management in Missouri, opportunities to increase paint recycling and create jobs, barriers to expanding recycling, and solutions for paint stewardship in the state. Since the meeting, stakeholders have reached consensus on their desire to bring the PaintCare program to Missouri and are now working with PSI to build support among more stakeholders across the state. PSI also continued to work with the International Paint Recycling Association (IPRA), a first of its kind alliance of North American recycled paint manufacturers that PSI conceived of and helped establish to promote the quality, availability, and value of recycled latex paint. PSI helped the group launch the organization at a fall hazardous waste management conference, establish an organization structure and incorporate, and establish a paint certification to signify the high-quality and reliability of paint made by IPRA members.

All other programs: PSI provided education, research, program evaluation, and facilitation services to public and private sector stakeholders and the general public on HHW, pesticides, batteries, mercury-containing lights, pharmaceuticals and medical sharps, solar panels, electronics, tires, carpet, mattresses, and other products. Over the course of the year, PSI gave presentations about U.S. product stewardship programs at 10 conferences and workshops; produced 3 webinars that attracted over 1,400 registrants; facilitated more than 44 meetings of product stewardship councils and workgroups in Illinois, New York, Missouri, Oklahoma, and Vermont, and provided technical support to PSI's more than 500 member and partner agencies, organizations, and companies, as well as the general public, on a wide array of product stewardship issues

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