Program Components

• Policy and threat analysis aimed at identifying and analyzing legislative and regulatory trends – at the national, state or municipal levels.
• A thought leader campaign that identifies key groups and develops verifiers, supporters and advocates outside of the industry who can help influence the debate around the environmental sustainability and impact of flexible packaging.
• A multifaceted strategic public relations program targeting key industry influencers and brands/consumer product companies.

Utilizes a Variety of Strategies

A multidisciplinary set of strategies that uses public policy tools including:

• Legislative monitoring, intelligence gathering, coalition building and advocacy. engagement to identify and stop threats and gain support from national, state and municipal policy makers.
• Stakeholder outreach programs aimed at identifying and recruiting industry supporters and verifiers.
• Marketing initiatives to shape the discourse around flexible packaging. 

Program Goals

• Promoting the benefits and effectiveness of flexible packaging to key audiences, including consumer product companies, industry stakeholders and policy makers.
• Preventing passage of negative public policy restricting the use, sale, or disposal of flexible packaging in consumer and industrial applications.

Program Key Messages

• Flexible packaging requires less material and energy to manufacture and to transport, and generates smaller quantities of greenhouse gases on its way to market.
• Flexible packaging is light-weight and easy to open, carry, store, and reseal.
• Flexible packaging extends the shelf life of many products, including food, and has a positive sustainability profile.
• Flexible packaging ultimately results in less consumer waste being sent to landfills, and the industry is working on resource recovery and other end-of-use solutions.

Program Issue Monitoring

Some of these include:

• Extended Producer Responsibility
• Restrictions on Non-Recyclable Packaging
• Recycled Content Mandates for Flexible Packaging
• Disposal Bans for Flexible Packaging
• Special Fees on Flexible Packaging
• Restrictions on Flexible Packaging Recycling Programs – such as restrictions on collection locations, restricting access to the single-stream recycling system, or restrictions on hauling flexible packaging materials
• Restrictions on chemicals use and material bans

Flexible Packaging: Leading the Way in Packaging Innovation

Technology and innovation created flexible packaging, and they continue to define it. Investment in modernizing the U.S. recycling systems will protect this packaging type and the vital products it protects.

Flexible packaging is at the forefront of important packaging attributes in product protection, design, and performance; consumer convenience; and sustainability, all of which positively affect the environment, consumers, and businesses.

Flexible packaging is any package or part of a package whose shape can be readily formed to the product packaged. It includes packaging made with paper, plastic, film, foil, metalized or coated paper and film, or any combination of these materials.

The FPA and its Emerging Leadership Council (ELC) developed a fact sheet that outlines the benefits of flexible packaging and current legislation that is affecting the industry.

Aluminum Foil Trade Actions Threaten Flexible Packaging Industry

The flexible packaging industry is once again unfairly targeted with unwarranted trade actions on aluminum foil that not only threatens food, pharmaceutical, and medical security in the U.S.; but will also negatively impact domestic jobs and increase prices during a time of unprecedented inflation. A “self-initiated” case by the Department of Commerce (DOC) against suppliers of aluminum foil from South Korea and Thailand threatens manufacturers of flexible packaging with unwarranted duties on necessary aluminum foil for food, pharmaceuticals, and medical device packaging.

FPA also developed a YouTube video on the trade actions and the impacts of additional tariffs and why aluminum foil is necessary for the industry.

PFAS & EPR Fact Sheets

FPA developed a series of fact sheets for extended producer responsibility (EPR) legislation and perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl (PFAS) regulations in various states. The fact sheets include legislative snapshots, definitions, elements at issue, and timelines and phases of implementation.

• FPA Position on PFAS Statements
  
• PFAS Regulation for Flexible Food Packaging
  
• California Senate Bill 54, “Solid Waste: Reporting, Packaging, and Plastic Food Service Ware”
  
• Colorado HB22-1355, “Producer Responsibility Program for Statewide Recycling”
  
• Maine LD 1541, “An Act To Support and Improve Municipal Recycling Programs and Save Taxpayer Money”
  
• Oregon Senate Bill 582, “Modernizing Oregon’s Recycling System”

The Basics of Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR)

Flexible packaging has evolved over the years to meet the ever changing needs of consumers. In fact, the advantages of flexible packaging have driven it to be on par with corrugated packaging.

Today's packaging films are highly engineered materials with many technical advancements designed to perform a variety of tasks while being one of the most sustainable ways to protect and preserve products through distribution.

The FPA and its Emerging Leadership Council (ELC) developed a video that explains the benefits of flexible packaging, the need for recycling infrastructure investment, and extended producer responsibility (EPR).

Federal Legislative Process

The Emerging Leadership Council’s (ELC) Advocacy Committee created an easy-to-reference infographic that outlines the federal legislative process to help to gain a better understanding of the path that bills need to take to become signed into law.