About Us

Product Policy Institute (PPI) is a North American not-for-profit working to prevent waste and promote sustainable production and consumption. We help government and community organizations move from a Throw-Away to Zero Waste Society.  We support Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR), or Product Stewardship, policies that ensure products do not become public liabilities.

Founded in 2003, the Product Policy Institute’s mission is to promote waste prevention and sustainable production and consumption practices through good public policy and governance. We advocate public policy that protects public health and safety and slows climate change by encouraging waste prevention, clean production and reduced use of toxics in products.  Our strategy is to organize local governments and communities to press for state-by-state Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) framework policies that will hold producers responsible for ensuring that their products and packaging do not become public liabilities.  Read PPI's Brochure (July, 2009).

Highlights

• 2003 – Product Policy Institute was co-founded by Helen Spiegelman, and Bill Sheehan.  Emphasis on the US-Canada EPR Working Group’s Essential Elements, British Columbia Business Plan principles, and BC’s framework approach (see Our Origins, below).  Founded as Product Policy Project (inspired by Mercury Policy Project) but soon changed name to Institute to signify a broader agenda.
• 2004 – “Extended Producer Responsibility Policies in the United States and Canada: History and Status,” by Bill Sheehan and Helen Spiegelman; chapter in Governance of Integrated Product Policy: In Search of Sustainable Production and Consumption, Edited by Dirk Scheer and Frieder Rubik, Greenleaf Publishing.  Highlighted the need for legislative approaches to EPR; traced the history of voluntary initiatives and the terms of “extended product responsibility” and “product stewardship” in the U.S.
• 2005 – Unintended Consequences: Municipal Solid Waste Management and the Throwaway Society, by Helen Spiegelman & Bill Sheehan.  PPI report established the role of local government waste management in enabling the production of disposable and toxic products and packaging, and in the power of local government to effect waste reduction by withdrawing this enabling support to producers and consumers.
   
• 2005, March – PPI Board sets strategy of organizing local government Councils and replicating the Northwest Product Stewardship Council in other states, starting with California.  Two PPI board members (Sego Jackson and David Stitzhal) were founding members of NWPSC (in 1998).
• 2006  – PPI is catalyst for launching the California Product Stewardship Council (CPSC).  EPR Framework was one of the priorities and goals set at the Nov 2006 CPSC retreat in Oakland and model framework legislation was developed by Sego Jackson and posted on the CPSC website (which PPI created and managed until 2008).  Led by local governments, California became the first U.S. state in which local and state government officials embraced the term EPR. 
• 2007 – The California Integrated Waste Management Board adopted a Strategic Directive on Producer Responsibility (Feb 13, 2007); and an EPR Framework Policy (Sept 2007) and Checklist with input from PPI and CPSC.  
• 2008 – PPI was the catalyst for the formation of the Vermont Product Stewardship Council and Texas Product Stewardship Council. PPI created and manages websites for both Councils. 
• 2009 - PPI was the catalyst for the formation of the New York Product Stewardship Council.  PPI hired a contractor to work with local governments and build public support for EPR in Minnesota.
   

Our Origins

• 1992 – Helen Spiegelman started writing about Germany’s new Extended Producer Responsibility programs for the Recycling Council of British Columbia’s (RBRC) newsletter. She continued to write about EPR over the next six years as British Columbia adopted landmark regulations and expanded “industry product stewardship” programs. RCBC played a critical role, through its quarterly newsletters and annual conferences, in informing local governments about the benefits of industry product stewardship.
• 1997 - GrassRoots Recycling Network developed Model Producer Responsibility Resolution.  Bill Sheehan was co-founder and executive director.  The Producer Responsibility resolution was adopted by Carrboro NC; the resolution concept was adopted by Clean Water Action & John McNabb who got more than 170 Massachusetts towns to adopt producer responsibility resolutions.
• 2002 - British Columbia Industry Product Stewardship Business Plan was issued.  It provided a "vision and policy framework" for industry product stewardship. There followed extensive public consultation and the publication of an Intentions Paper in September 2003 that outlined a "single regulation for BC's industry product stewardship (IPS) programs."
• 2002-2003 – US-Canada EPR Working Group formed by Bill Sheehan and Canadian Beverly Thorpe (Clean Production Action, author of EPR Tool Kit).  Meeting of 30 key North American NGOs (including Sheehan, Spiegelman and Sego Jackson) in Buffalo NY in June 2003 to agree on principles; produced EPR Working Group Essential Elements of an Effective EPR Program, which drew from British Columbia’s Industry Product Stewardship Business Plan and Computer TakeBack Coalition’s EPR Legislative Principles for electronic waste.

Why the Compass? The Product Policy Institute believes that the proper role of government is setting and enforcing performance standards in the public interest (True North), rather than providing detailed solutions (Maps). Principles on which governments should base standards for sustainable industry performance include producer responsibility, polluter pays and precaution.