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SC Johnson and AMERIPEN Testify About Federal-Level EPR

The multiple-day hearings highlighted a need for collaboration between the government and the primary stakeholders to come up with a palatable program.

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The first week of March saw SC Johnson's CEO testify before the U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works at a hearing about extended producer responsibility (EPR) policies for consumer packaging, along with AMERIPEN (the American Institute for Packaging and the Environment) and WWF (the World Wildlife Fund).

According to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Fisk Johnson, CEO of the chemical cleaning multinational, has advocated for years for federal legislation to better the U.S.'s ability to recycle and reuse plastic, particularly among businesses.

Despite SC Johnson’s companywide commitment to reducing plastic waste through 100% recycled plastic bottles and cleaning solution cartridges that allow bottles to be reused, he admitted during the hearings that he couldn’t say he feels good about the progress being made with plastic waste and recycling. He further advocated for stronger and uniform regulation on plastic and EPR - because "voluntary actions only can go so far."

"In our view, the only practical way to get every stakeholder in the plastic ecosystem working together and driving scale is a government regulatory framework," Johnson told the committee. "All companies of sufficient size in the ecosystem have to be part of it for it to work and to drive the right economics and change."

Erin Simon, the vice president of plastic waste and business for the World Wildlife Fund, and Dan Felton, the executive director of AMERIPEN, a packaging policy advocacy group, also testified before the panel.

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