As Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) laws reshape how businesses think about packaging, companies are facing new questions about compliance, packaging data, material choices, and cost.
Atlantic Packaging Director of Sustainability Caroline DeLoach recently shared her perspective with Forbes for the article California Is Changing Who Pays For Packaging. What Businesses Need To Know.
The article explores California’s SB 54 and what the state’s evolving packaging requirements could mean for businesses. For companies preparing for EPR, Caroline emphasizes starting with the fundamentals: understanding where requirements apply, building a detailed picture of the packaging within each SKU, and identifying opportunities to reduce material or transition to recyclable formats.
For small and mid-sized businesses without dedicated packaging engineering or regulatory teams, packaging suppliers can play an important role in that process. As Caroline explains in the article, suppliers can help companies compile the packaging data needed for reporting while evaluating which packaging changes are technically feasible.
Caroline also discusses the bigger opportunity behind EPR: creating stronger recycling systems. Investments in collection and processing infrastructure could help recover challenging materials such as flexible films and make it more viable for brands to reduce packaging and adopt recyclable formats where they make sense.
At Atlantic, this work reflects how we approach sustainable packaging every day: helping customers understand their packaging systems, reduce unnecessary material, evaluate alternatives, and navigate an increasingly complex packaging landscape.