PRODUCT STEWARDSHIP

A Strategy for MRW Management

Shirli Axelrod Seattle Public Utilities 710 Second Avenue, 11th Floor Seattle, WA 98104 phone: 206-684-7804 E-Mail: [email protected]

Why Product Stewardship?

•Reduce pollution and health dangers.

•Promote manufacturer responsibility for the energy and materials consumption, air and water emissions, toxic materials, worker safety threats, and waste disposal impacts from their products.

•Producers make the decisions that most influence those costs and impacts.

•Stewardship means they take responsibility throughout the life of their products, from design through the end-of-life management.

Why Product Stewardship?

Reasons for instituting product stewardship:  recapturing resources  reducing the amount of garbage  reducing waste management costs to government and ratepayers  reducing potential harm from toxic material exposure

We Need A New Approach

• producers need to get involved to address the problems from their products:

Product Stewardship

Beyond Conventional Thinking

• Traditionally, Government Managers accept responsibility for wastes and incorporate costs into customer rates or taxes.

• “Life-line” becomes “life-cycle” when producers bear responsibility for their products’ impacts, and charge buyers (not ratepayers or taxpayers).

New Product Cycle: No Waste

What We Might Achieve:

• Producer responsibility for existing backlogs of waste; • Changes in design and manufacturing, to be cleaner and reduce use of toxic materials; • Manufacturers promote reuse and recycling; • Shift costs from municipal solid waste ratepayers into “prices” paid by producers and users.

What’s Been Happening?

• National and international “takeback” systems of varying levels of effectiveness (RBRC, Thermostats, Carpet) • National Electronics Product Stewardship Initiative; Western Electronics Product Stewardship Initiative • Paint working group (NPSI)

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• Patagonia, Nike, and others commiting to some levels of stewardship • Medical industry groups (PVC, Mercury, etc.) • Outside the US: – British Columbia Product Care Association – EU vehicle, white goods, packaging, electronics requirements – Japan and Australia electronics takeback

Your Company, Agency, or Organization Can Get Involved:

• The Northwest Product Stewardship Council (NWPSC).

• Organized in 2000 by local governments “to integrate product stewardship principles into the policy and economic structures of the pacific Northwest.” • Steering Committee of local governments.

NWPSC Organization

• Current Steering Committee members: – Oregon DEQ – Washington DOE – City of Portland – City of Seattle – Clark County – Snohomish County – Kitsap County – King County – Metro – LHWMP – EPA Region 10

NWPSC Projects:

• Electronics: computer and television product stewardship local, regional, and national initiatives with industry.

• Medical Industry Roundtable.

• Input to state and/or national projects on Mercury and Latex Paint.

• Provide “Policymaker Bulletins” to Oregon and Washington officials • www.productstewardship.net

Your Company, Agency, or Organization Can Get Involved:

• Join the National Product Stewardship Institute, and adopt their “Principles.” (Information at www.productstewardshipinstitute.org/) • Oregon, Washington, Portland, Metro, Seattle, Vancouver, King County, Snohomish County, Kitsap County all have done so.

Your Company, Agency, or Organization Can Get Involved:

• Incorporate Product Stewardship in Comprehensive Planning, Economic Development, and other decision making in your jurisdiction; and

Your Company, Agency, or Organization Can Get Involved:

• Use your agency’s buying power: – solicit and buy environmentally-preferable products, and – include “vendor takeback” and environmentally-sound end-of-life management by vendors in your purchasing contracts.

(For electronics, see the “Guide to Environmentally Preferable Purchasing” from the Northwest Product Stewardship Council; www.productstewardship.net)