Amidst rapid advancement of packaging EPR laws, stakeholders remain hyper-fixated on recycling. Solutions that require true systemic change, like reuse, risk being regarded as side issues in the absence of strong advocacy.

A playbook for best-in-class Producer Responsibility Organizations for packaging EPR programs.

A table tracking how reuse is implicated in state EPR for packaging policies.

How do we get producers affected by EPR packaging laws to focus on reuse? By baking funding, requirements, and incentives for reuse directly into the law. Here’s how it’s done.

State legislation such as Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) and Deposit Return Systems (DRS) must focus on transitioning to a circular economy that prioritizes reuse. (Updated July 2025).

Upstream CEO Matt Prindiville just returned from GreenBiz’s Circularity Conference. It was a sold-out 3 day affair with more than a thousand sustainability professionals from virtually every consumer brand, plus representatives from the rest of their value chain. Here are three valuable takeaways from the conference.

Even though Extended Producer Responsibility has in theory been about creating a circular economy for packaging, in practice, the only goals that have been applied in legislation so far are recycling targets. The effect has been increased recycling where EPR systems are in place, but no actual reduction in the generation of packaging waste. We can change this.

This week, Sego Jackson - one of Upstream’s founding board members - retired from the City of Seattle. As the saying goes, “People don’t remember what you said. They remember how you made them feel.” And I remember the way Sego made me feel when I first met him back in 2004.

With big brands signaling support for extended producer responsibility (EPR), deposit-return systems (DRS), and – most recently – reuse/refill, opportunities have opened up to pass policies and build infrastructure to transform how we consume products. But with these commitments come competing ideas around vision, strategies and tactics – and about which policies should come first, and which should follow.