According to Beyond Plastics, an advocacy group, more than one billion people live in places where consumer goods companies pay some or all of the costs of packaging collection and recycling under a doctrine known as Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR). The United States, says the group, is the only country among 34 members of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) that has not established an EPR program.

It's true that the U.S. has not embraced EPR at the federal level and is not likely to do so anytime soon. But because EPR initiatives by individual states are gaining ground, printers and packaging converters should be aware of the impacts that these regulatory laws could have on their businesses.

This two-part report will examine the impacts first from the point of view of industry trade groups trying to educate their members about them; and next from the perspectives of printers and converters currently dealing with them on behalf of their customers.