EPR Fee’s on Packaging in Oregon?

I’ve heard the arguments against EPR that consumer prices will go up and the producers will just add it on to the price of the product, etc. Sorry… not buying that argument.

With 40+ years in the packaging industry, working with producers, while also advocating for EPR in my home state of Tennessee I was anxiously waiting for the final CAA (Circular Action Alliance) draft fee rates which were published on December 6th, 2024.

I was curious what the fees would be on some common grocery items. I selected items from the Kroger website that list the retail price and carefully weighed each empty package, cross referenced the material to the CAA “Draft Base Fee Rate Estimate” on pages 199-202 of the report and used the low/high rates to calculate the estimated fees on each of these items. It appears the fees range average 1-2% of retail prices. Surely not enough to cause producers to raise consumer costs by any substantial amount and in fact, if the producers were to able reduce the package, make it smaller, or light weight, they could save more than 1-2% making EPR fees “cost-neutral”.