To endorse the CRADLE² platform, please enter your information in the form below.  Public interest organizations also have the option of becoming campaign partners.  For more information about what becoming an endorser or partner means, click here.

OUR PLATFORM

We call for state policies that allocate responsibility to producers for creating the foundation of a cradle-to-cradle economy.  Effective policies:

1.     Establish producer responsibility as the primary approach for managing discarded products and packaging:  Governments adopt producer responsibility policies for nearly all manufactured products and packaging, ensuring that producers create cradle-to-cradle systems for collecting and reusing or recycling the products they sell. Products can be channeled into reuse both by the consumer directly and also through producer responsibility programs.  Responsibility for waste management is shifted from general taxpayers and garbage ratepayers to producers and users.

2.     Make it as easy for consumers to return a product as to buy it in the first place: Producers ensure that there is a convenient return system available, free of charge. The costs and benefits of recycling are built into the price of the product rather than charged later.

3.     Initiate early action for high priority products and build on existing producer responsibility programs:  State policies target products that contain toxic materials as well as high-volume, high-environmental-impact products and packaging, such as those that produce high levels of greenhouse gas emissions during their life cycle. New initiatives are designed to match the collection levels achieved by successful existing producer responsibility programs – such as producer-managed deposit-refund programs – with financial incentives added if programs fail to meet similarly high collection and recycling rates.

4.     Set high environmental standards and let innovation happen: Government sets performance targets and environmental standards in the public interest, and producers create solutions for meeting them.  Government provides producers with flexibility to determine the most cost-effective means of achieving the performance targets, with minimum government involvement.  Stewardship programs foster competition among producers to stimulate innovation and minimize environmental impacts during all stages of the product lifecycle, from product design to end-of-life management.

5.     Require recovered products and packaging to be put to their highest and best use:  Performance targets for stewardship programs are guided by the waste-reduction hierarchy of reduce and reuse first, then recycle, to maximize environmental and social benefits.  State policies ensure that discarded products and packaging are put to high-value applications and not incinerated, landfilled or “downcycled” into low-value applications (incineration for energy does not count as recycling).  For products that cannot currently be recycled due to their hazardous nature, producers provide for responsible disposal.

6.     Require accountability and transparency, and ensure the public’s right to know:  Industry is accountable to both government and consumers for their stewardship programs’ outcomes.  Government provides oversight and enforcement of performance targets and standards, and ensures a level playing field so the same rules apply to all manufacturers.  Industry stewardship programs are developed by producers and provide opportunity for input from all stakeholders.  Government and industry track what percentages of products and packaging sold each year are recovered and reused or recycled.  Producers provide workers, consumers and the marketplace with full access to information about the health hazards and environmental profile of products. 

7.     Prohibit from disposal in solid waste landfills and incinerators those products and packaging that are easy to recycle, or toxic and dangerous:  State policies include disposal bans or recycling requirements on products for which municipal collection or producer responsibility programs exist.  Disposal bans are also put on products that are dangerous or contain toxic materials such as medical sharps, fluorescent light bulbs, left-over pesticides, and propane canisters.

8.     Grow American jobs and promote local economic development:  Producer responsibility policies foster local, diversified economic development and job creation.  Existing businesses are expanded.  New businesses are created through the take-back, recycling, repair, re-use, and exchange of discarded goods.   Measures are in place to protect workers and to prevent the export of toxic garbage to developing countries.

9.     Grow markets for environmentally preferable products and materials.  Government, institutional and corporate procurement policies purchase environmentally-preferable products to support market development for green products and cradle-to-cradle design.   Government, businesses and consumers support industries and companies that are committed to phasing out the use of toxic chemicals, using environmentally-preferable materials and reducing the carbon footprint of their products.

STATEMENT OF SUPPORT

We endorse the work of the CRADLE² Coalition. You can use our name in the list of members and general supporters of the Coalition.  Endorsement does not imply support for specific actions to address any particular issue. For more information about what becoming an endorser means, click here.  *We will not use your name in connection with any particular legislation or other proposals without your separate consent.

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