The national Consumer Technology Association is protesting the legislature’s recent passage of a law creating a task force to study how Connecticut might reduce the amount of consumer packaging in its solid waste stream.
The Consumer Technology Association (formerly the Consumer Electronics Association) said the law amounts to a tax on consumers.
“A statewide packaging program filled with new rules and fees would create a massive new administrative burden for the state and increase costs to manufacturers, and ultimately consumers, without the guarantee of increasing recycling rates or environmental benefits,” Allison Schumacher, CTA’s director of environmental policy and sustainability at CTA, said in a statement.
The bill’s chief proponent, though, said doing nothing would cost more.
Sen. Ted Kennedy Jr., who chairs the legislature’s Environment Committee, said packaging needs to be studied so Connecticut can reach its goal of reducing solid waste by 60 percent by 2024.
The bill calls for the task force to recommend ways to reduce the amount of consumer packaging in the state’s waste stream by at least 25 percent by 2024..
“The increase in shipping materials, boxes, and other pieces of consumer packaging clog Connecticut’s waste stream and costs communities millions of dollars due to increased municipal trash pickup and disposal expenses,” Kennedy said in a statement.
