Needs assessment surveys for Minnesota EPR law underway

The Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA) has announced that needs assessment surveys for the Packaging Waste and Cost Reduction Act are in progress. 

The act, which is Minnesota’s extended producer responsibility (EPR) law for packaging, food packaging and paper products, requires MPCA to complete a needs assessment to gather information about packaging and paper product introduction, use and reuse and management in Minnesota to inform the development of the program statewide.   

The needs assessment will include an official baseline for program measures and outcomes, recommendations on investments in collection, sorting and end markets, a recommended methodology for reimbursement rates for service providers, an evaluation of environmental improvements and best practices for education and outreach. 

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MPCA says it contracted with Eunomia Research & Consulting for this work. The project is in its data collection phase, which includes five surveys over the coming weeks. 

Surveys

The municipalities survey for cities, towns and townships is available online now. The survey will be sent by email to a subset of municipalities across the state identified by counties. MPCA says it will use the survey to gather data on collection services, the costs of the services, the costs to the municipality to run the services and performance data.  

The facilities survey for any facility participating in recycling collection and processing activities is available online. MPCA will use this survey to better understand how facilities are classified, what they are currently sorting and what they could potentially be sorting in the future.   

MPCA says the survey for counties will close soon. The agency will use this survey to gather data on service provisions by county, operational and performance data and contractual agreements and cost data. Counties may be invited to participate in small group meetings or interviews as a follow-up to this survey.  

The survey for haulers will open soon. MPCA will use the survey to gather data on costs and service provisions for single-family residential and multifamily households and other covered entities such as schools and government buildings.    

The survey for recyclers also will open soon. This survey is for recyclers of covered materials that were collected in Minnesota and out-of-state markets that recycle in Minnesota. MPCA will use the survey to gather data on how covered materials are currently recycled in Minnesota, the quantity of materials recycled and challenges with contamination at recycling markets.