Avoid fees you don't owe, lower the ones you do

On October 5 and 6, 2026, Catherine Johnson served as co-chair of ACI's EPR Think Tank conference in San Francisco.

Emma Roos-Collins has completed Circular Action Alliance's training and will be listed in CAA's first Consultant Training Directory.

Going to the Sustainable Packaging Summit this November 10th to 12th in Utrecht? Stop by our booth there or reach out and let's connect.

On October 18, 2026, Catherine Johnson presented on an EPR panel at the 35th Annual Environmental Law Conference at Yosemite.

Question of the Month

California doesn't include paper as a covered material — does that mean I exclude everything made of paper?"

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Five questions every producer needs answered

Deadline approaching: California's sales ban on non-compliant producers goes into effect January 1, 2027

The EPR Solutions Package

Customize the Package to your company's needs.

Attorney-led, law firm available alongside if requested

Fixed fee Package with optional add-ons and updates.

WHAT THE PACKAGE ANSWERS

1 Am I an obligated producer and in what states?

After a survey and intake call, we test your brands, licensing, supply chains, and sales pathways against each state's rules and exemptions. Your Producer & Packaging Evaluation is available for management briefings and regulator/PRO audits.

2 What exactly do I report and what can I leave out?

Your custom Producer Obligation Matrix sorts out your obligations according to packaging types, your supply chain and sales pathways, as well as potential exemptions. This is your "action" document you can use with software tools or an Excel sheet for reporting purposes.

3 What do I owe in fees?

A Fee Estimate Worksheet is your second "action" document; an Excel sheet for each state lists every state's categories of materials and the fee rate for each material. You can enter your packaging weights for each category and the Excel sheet will calculate your estimated fees for each state.

4 What do I do next and how do I stay current?

Your Compliance Plan coupled with a Compliance Timeline tells you what you need to do and when you need to do it. Your Package includes a one-hour debriefing with our team to discuss the Package, next steps, and answer questions. As an add-on, if requested, we update the entire Package, including updated fee rates, twice a year, in our Evergreen Updates subscription service.

5 How can I lower my fees?

In the Fee Optimization Roadmap, we triage your packaging for the biggest driver of fees and evaluate design options against base fees and eco-modulated fees. You can then evaluate with your packaging professional (or with our partner packaging engineer) for product-appropriate design, and evaluate for costs and supply chain issues to strategize for fee optimization.

Schedule a complimentary call to discuss your EPR needs.

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AVAILABLE ON ITS OWN

Just need the Fee Optimization Roadmap?

The Roadmap is available on a stand-alone basis. The Roadmap provides design options for packaging driving your fees and lays out which changes to make first and when.