EPR at the Intersection Between Brands and Flexible Packaging Converters
As extended producer responsibility (EPR) laws take hold across the U.S., the Circular Action Alliance (CAA) is helping producers navigate their new obligations. Converters, though not obligated as “producers” under these laws, play a crucial supporting role, providing the data and packaging intelligence brands need to comply and reduce fees.
When states pass packaging EPR laws, the financial responsibility to help build and maintain an adequate recycling infrastructure falls squarely on brand owners, who are deemed to be the “producers” of the packaged products under most EPR frameworks.
But some packaging formats are harder to recycle than others. Paper tends to be simplest to recycle. Glass, aluminum, and even rigid mono-material plastics like PET, HDPE, and PP require a bit more reprocessing than fiber-based packaging, but are widely considered recyclable across U.S. recycling infrastructure in its current state.
Flexible packaging, though, is on the more difficult side of the recyclability spectrum. Multiple substrate materials that are or co-extruded or laminated together with several layers may require advanced recycling methods to separate and recover. And even the comparatively easy-to-recycle mono-material, homogenous resins, which can be recycled mechanically, are difficult to collect and sort when they're in their 2D film form, and are likely to contaminate paper bales.
That's why film and flexible packaging suppliers, converters, and resin producers are likely to play an outsized role, compared to other materials, in helping producer brands achieve recyclability, thus manage and minimize their obligations.
Naturally, this was a hot topic at this week's FlexForward 2025, where Dan Felton, president and CEO of the Flexible Packaging Association (FPA) sat down for a tête-à-tête with Jeff Fielkow, president and CEO of the Circular Action Alliance (CAA), the producer responsibility organization (PRO) representing or likely-to-represent brands in all current states with EPR laws.
“The producers are paying that bill. But that doesn’t mean that’s the only stakeholder that CAA has. We need to tie the entire supply chain together because it’s very much linked,” said Fielkow.
Converters, he said, should understand what their producer customers are required to do in each state.
“If I were to put a converter hat on ... I would want to know what the laws are and what the requirements are for my customers in each state. I can’t give you a simple answer because it varies for every state. That is one of the problem statements. But it’s really important to understand what your customer, the producers, are experiencing—what their obligations are out of this program.” he said.
In most cases, those obligations include ensuring products are recyclable, achieving source-reduction targets, or contributing to state-based recycling funds. Converters who can help producers meet those targets will be key partners in compliance.
“There’s a lot of ways your organization members could play roles,” Fielkow said. “Flex-film recycling is one of the biggest unsolved problems we have to solve, and my guess is there’s a lot of great knowledge in this room that could certainly contribute to solutions.”
Dan Felton (left) of FPA asks Jeff Fielkow of CAA how converters and flexible packaging suppliers can be better partners to their brand customers in the face of emerging EPR laws. Matt ReynoldsData and fee calculation
In each EPR state, producers must report detailed data on their packaging portfolios possibly including materials used, weights, units sold, recyclability, recycled content, and compostability profile. Those data points determine the fees brands owe to the PRO in a sort of bonus-malus incentive system.
“At the most basic level, when a producer is doing business with any supplier, part of their obligation—this is part of the law—is to provide into CAA all the components they’re using to make their products. If it’s a covered material, what is the weight? What is the number of units being fulfilled by the producer in that state? Which means they need data,” Fielkow said.
That information often resides with converters, not brand owners.
“Anything you can do to make it easier for producers, I’m certain they’d be pleased with that," he said. "In California in particular, when you talk about—not the macro, but de minimis—there will be even more need for brand-level materials so producers can stay compliant with the law.”
End markets are the biggest hurdle
Multiple different expert speakers over the three days at FlexForward 2025 identified end markets as the single biggest challenge, but also the key to unlocking circularity in California under SB 54, and across all EPR states. When asked what the biggest challenge is in making flexible packaging circular, Fielkow didn’t hesitate to join the chorus.
“The biggest problem statement that really needs to be unlocked is the end-market demand and pull, period,” he said. “We can collect it. It can be collected in alternative collection mechanisms, in mainstream recycling, in single-stream, or in secondary processing. These are all in the wheelhouse that can be done. But to get true circularity, our biggest problem to solve is robust, steady, stable, transparent end markets that have real demand attached to them.”
He compared film recycling to paper, where a clear circular pathway already exists.
“Paper is the easiest end market to explain. You can take a corrugated box, put it in a recycling bin, it goes to a mill, and it can be a corrugated box again. There’s no reason that film—and by the way, it’s one of the few products that can go curbside and back into an end use immediately—shouldn’t get there. Flexible film will require us to rebuild the system to make recycling practical. We have no choice.”
Collection and sortation are solvable but costly
Collection and sorting, while not as intractable as end-market demand, present technical and logistical hurdles for MRFs.
“We have to pull all levers,” Fielkow said. “It’s not a one-size-fits-all. We will have to tap into alternative collections. Some areas can expand curbside collection; some cannot. We have to understand what market we’re in and build something that will actually work.”
He sees promise in optical and AI-assisted technologies.
“We also believe there will need to be secondary sorting,” Fielkow said. “We do not expect that every recycling center will be able to make perfect quality out of the gate, and many won’t have the capacity to do that. So there’s also a need for secondary sortation — regional pulls for materials coming out of these recycling facilities — so we can truly make clean streams, not just separating fiber from non-fiber. With the great technology that’s out there, like infrared spectroscopy and AI, we can get much more granular and create the highest possible value for materials.”
An unnecessarily controversial non-mechanical path to circularity
For flexible packaging structures that can’t be mechanically recycled, CAA supports access to non-mechanical options, so long as they meet the criteria for a “responsible end market.”
“We are very firm that we need every possible end market that can qualify as a responsible end market,” Fielkow said. “All states that have EPR programs so far have what’s called a Responsible End Market, or REM. As long as any end market can pass the criteria to become a responsible end market , and those criteria can be standardized, then they should have equal access to materials. When we’re talking about chemical recycling, too often it gets bundled into one word, but there are so many technologies that do different things. It’s best to break it down. Are we talking about pyrolysis? Methanolysis? Gasification?”
He emphasized that mechanical recycling should always come first if it’s a practical route. All things being equal, it’s the preferred branch of the decision tree. But advanced methods are necessary to close the loop on some packaging types.
“It is one of the only viable paths to get true circularity for some grades of flexible packaging,” he said. “Flow everything you can through mechanical, and what cannot be processed mechanically should have a responsible end market that is a non-mechanical solution.”
Eco-modulation incentivizing design for recyclability
EPR programs also employ “eco-modulation,” which are fee adjustments that reward or penalize design choices based on recyclability.
“Ecomodulation is a tool built into EPR laws that is designed to reward certain behaviors and penalize others,” Fielkow said. “It provides a bonus for a producer to make a change to a product that might become more recyclable, and a malus [an additional fee] if the producer stays in a package or material type not compatible with the recycling system.”
Consistency across states is essential, he said. “There needs to be harmonization on how eco-modulation is done from all states, because the last thing you want is seven different ways to do eco-modulation and cause confusion for a producer that doesn’t know which one to pick.”
Quick hits from Fielkow and Felton at FPA
California’s SB 54 and the plastic mitigation fund
California’s EPR law, SB 54, contains several unique provisions, including a Plastic Pollution Mitigation Fund requiring CAA to collect $500 million annually for ten years, or $5 billion.
“Each year for ten years, CAA needs to collect $500 million from those that would be qualified under the covered materials in plastic,” Fielkow said. “That money goes directly to the state. A decent amount goes to disadvantaged communities that might have been adversely impacted by plastic pollution, and the other portion can be used statewide for infrastructure improvements and remediation.”
The law allows some of that funding to come from other parts of the value chain, not just producers. “It may be collected from non-producers, which could be converters or resin manufacturers,” Fielkow said.
Under California's SB 54, resin producers could pay into a fund through a PRO, CAA in this case, which is authorized to collect up to $150 million per year from them to meet the total annual $500 million surcharge on all plastic producers. The remaining funds must be collected from the producers of the finished plastic products themselves, based on their market share.
Toward harmonization, or federalization
With five EPR states now under CAA management and more on the way, one of the group’s biggest goals is consistency.
“It’s all about clarity,” Fielkow said. “Out of the gate, what is a producer? Who is a producer? We have different definitions of producers in many of the state programs. Harmonizing who we are talking about would be a benefit. Harmonizing covered materials, the time between when a law is passed and when the program starts, the reimbursement process, eco-modulation, responsible end markets—all of these should be harmonized.”
CAA, he said, can harmonize only what is within its control.
“We’re already doing a good job harmonizing what’s in our control,” Fielkow said. “When you use our portal, you’re going into one place to report, no matter what state it is. If you do business in more than one state, click a button and you’re registered for that state. We’ve got one team to answer questions and provide guidance documents. We’re trying to make that piece harmonized and easy for producers.”
Consumer education an expensive ‘stealth weapon’
Every EPR program requires consumer outreach, and CAA is treating it as central to recycling success.
“We believe education and outreach is the secret stealth weapon,” Fielkow said. “If we’re going to actually get behavior change, we have to inflict that. We can’t just wish for it. ... A pretty good guide is that there's somewhere between three and seven dollars per household. And across the five states we currently have, that’s 20 to 22 million households. That's hands-down the biggest investment in recycling education and outreach that’s ever been done.”
The role of collaboration
Ultimately, Fielkow underscored that CAA’s success depends on collaboration across the packaging value chain.
"We need partnerships all the way through,” Fielkow concludes. “At CAA, we’re not designing to try to solve everything. We’re going to convene those that have the expertise to help solve it. We can be the facilitator, but we’ll rely on industry, on association groups, and on the existing waste and recycling infrastructure to double down on their investments because they see a good path forward. While we can’t solve everything, we’re going to convene everything to make sure all producers are compliant with these laws.”
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Dan Felton (left) of FPA asks Jeff Fielkow of CAA how converters and flexible packaging suppliers can be better partners to their brand customers in the face of emerging EPR laws. Matt Reynolds
Dan Felton (left) of FPA asks Jeff Fielkow of CAA how converters and flexible packaging suppliers can be better partners to their brand customers in the face of emerging EPR laws. Matt Reynolds
