It’s official - Governor Ferguson has officially signed and approved a huge bill that would reduce plastic pollution in Washington!
The Washington Recycling Reform Act (WRRA) - formerly the WRAP Act, is an Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) bill. This type of bill places the responsibility of a product’s disposal on the producers and manufacturers, rather than the consumers. Many types of EPR bills already exist for hard-to-manage products at the end of their life, like mattresses, tires, batteries, and paint. Fortunately, we’re starting to see more EPR bills emerge for plastic packaging, and the Recycling Reform Act (SB 5284) is one of them.
To learn more about how we got here, I interviewed Washington Policy Manager, Peter Steelquist, who has first-hand experience with this huge milestone!
Hey Pete, thanks for meeting with me. To start, can you tell me about the outdated recycling system that inspired this new legislation?
Right now, there are huge swaths of Washington state that don’t have access to curbside recycling, and many of them lack uniform recycling lists, so residents don’t know what can be recycled and often this results in cross-contamination. We have a huge abundance of both marine debris and litter from plastic packaging in our state. People have said that once you cross state lines, there’s noticeably more litter on our roadways compared to surrounding states.
That’s disheartening. So when did Surfrider members of the Washington region first get involved in this campaign?
This bill was originally proposed in 2019, and interestingly enough, when I worked in my previous role as a legislative aide, it was my boss’s bill. So I have been working on this bill for the last six years. This bill has had many iterations, and it’s a complete overhaul to Washington’s recycling system. It’s an incredibly complex, systems-changing bill, and there are hundreds of stakeholders involved in this process. Surfrider has been one of the chief proponents of this bill, and a big reason for that is our Plastic Pollution Initiative. We were founding members of the Plastic-Free Washington Coalition, and we are active members of the Washington Environmental Priorities Coalition. The passing of this bill is a testament to the power of partnerships, and we would not be celebrating this victory without the multiyear, collaborative effort of so many individuals, groups, and coalitions.
Awesome! How did you all collaborate with other partners on this bill?
We met regularly throughout the years, we worked on the plastic bag ban and multiple smaller plastics bills, like the styrofoam ban, hotel toiletries, and things like that, but the EPR bill has always been the largest, most impactful goal. Surfrider has a huge grassroots network so we bring in a lot of voices from places that are most impacted by plastic pollution – our coastal communities and Puget Sound area. We’ve engaged our grassroots networks to leverage hundreds, if not thousands, of committee sign-ins, messages to legislators, and lobby day attendees with the help of our larger coalition.
Can you tell me a little bit more about those lobby days you’ve had with volunteers?
The Environmental Priorities Coalition organizes an Environmental Lobby Day in Olympia each year. We support that event, recruiting volunteers and advocates from different regions in our network, preparing them with talking points, scheduling meetings, that kind of thing. We had good turnout with Surfrider volunteers. On one of our lobby days, it snowed like 5” and volunteers still drove 3-4 hours to show up.
Last year some of the volunteers were first timers, and this year, some came back because they enjoyed it so much. A couple of our chapters really stepped up with sending out Action Alerts and engaging our network. Our Seattle chapter was really proactive and plugged into our coalition calls just because they wanted to. It was nice to empower folks and watch them really take ownership and make it their own.
Surfrider activists and staff at the State Capitol in February 2025, ready to lobby on behalf of our ocean, waves, and beaches!
It’s amazing to see our grassroots network in action. So, what are some of the benefits included in this legislation?
It increases access to recycling across Washington, including many rural areas, so everyone who currently receives curbside garbage pickup will get access to low-cost curbside recycling, too. There’s a strong labeling system for recyclability, as well as a reuse fund, meaning the packaging producers pay into the fund to help provide infrastructure and containers necessary for a robust reuse system..
One of the best things about this bill is that it implements a strong and stringent process to assess chemical recycling. The bar to permit any type of chemical recycling is very high, and it’s worded in a way that will be resilient to the changing landscape and emerging technologies around chemical recycling. That also means the chemical recycling plants can’t burn plastic for fuel, so that’s big, and that’s something we really, really pushed for, even when it could mean fewer votes. No waste-to-energy was a hard line in the sand for us, because those facilities tend to be located in disadvantaged communities.
What about toxic chemicals? Are those getting taken out of packaging?
Yes. Prior legislation has already addressed PFAS in food packaging, but the EPR bill addresses toxic chemicals by incentivizing the use of materials and packaging designs that eliminate intentionally added toxic substances.
What can we expect to see first now that the act is signed?
The next step is that the bill convenes a complete needs assessment of the entire recycling system in Washington. It’s important to note that this includes an environmental justice task force, which will look at accessibility to recycling and locations of disposal sites. After the needs assessment is completed, then the producer responsibility organization (also called a PRO) will be convened, and concurrently, municipalities and waste haulers will start picking up curbside recycling from more Washington residents. The legislation will take effect in phases and be fully implemented by 2030.
You mentioned earlier that there are a few places that are more affected than others. What does this all mean for Washington’s coasts?
Great question. Washington’s coastlines are rural and lots of our outer coast lacks easy (or any) access to recycling services. Many of our transfer stations don’t accept glass, for instance. Soon our coastal communities will have far better access to recycling services.
What excites you the most about this new law?
I think it’s just going to make recycling much easier and accessible for generations of Washingtonians, paid for by producers and not the public. I see my kid try to help around the house and try his best to recycle because he knows it’s the right thing to do, and it’s incredibly hard to tell him, “yeah that’s not recyclable, and here’s why.”
Aww. He’s just like us…doing his best. Anything else that you want people to know people to know about this campaign?
In the last few years, we’ve really worked hard and it's shown from engaging our network to showing up at the legislature. We’ve been trying to take a leadership position in the plastic waste space whenever we have the chance. However, we couldn’t have done this without the support of all the constituents who got involved, our strong partnerships, and our elected leaders. Thank you to everyone who helped get this legislation passed, and thank you to Governor Ferguson for signing it into law!
Peter Steelquiest speaking at a press conference at the State Capitol, where they used a recycling bin as the podium!
One of the lobby days in Olympia where advocates joined together to lobby for important environmental legislation. You can see Peter Steelquist at the center with his surfboard.