Exploring the Challenges and Opportunities Facing the Industry in Light of a Growing Consumer and Policymaker Focus on Sustainability
Sustainability topics are top of mind for virtually every industry across the globe, and nonwovens are no exception. In fact, the nonwovens industry has been at the forefront of innovation in terms of sustainability with significant investments being made in the areas of natural inputs, biopolymers, and other breakthrough innovations in the areas of composting and degradation.
Despite industry advancements, significant regulatory headwinds across the globe will have an impact on the global nonwovens industry and will provide significant direction for the industry over the next decade.
While many of these global legislative and regulatory activities are aimed at serving noble causes such as alleviating plastic pollution, microplastics, and carbon outputs, many of these policies often intentionally or unintentionally shut off pathways to innovation to the detriment of the consumer, companies, and the environment.
U.S. Actions
Here in the United States, the question I get the most is, “What is single-use plastics regulation going to look like at the national level?” Unlike, Europe, there has been no significant movement of enacting single-use plastic bans at the federal level, and any action regarding plastics regulation is likely to come from federal agencies as opposed to Congress. Last year, the Environmental Protection Agency released a “Draft National Strategy to Prevent Plastic Pollution,” which aims to eliminate the release of plastic waste from land-based sources into the environment by 2040 by reducing, reusing, composting, collecting and capturing plastic waste in coordination with existing national recycling programs. This strategy has drawn some criticism from industry groups for focusing on reducing plastic production rather than end-of-life considerations.
Many states will not wait for the federal government to act on this issue. States including Connecticut, California, Delaware, Hawaii, Maine, New York, Oregon, and Vermont, have acted on single-use plastics, with plastic bags being the first products to be targeted.
In short, the answer to the question of what national plastics policy will look like in the United States is that any significant federal policy will likely take years to implement. With this in mind, many states will not wait for the federal government to act on this issue. States including Connecticut, California, Delaware, Hawaii, Maine, New York, Oregon, and Vermont, have acted on single-use plastics, with plastic bags being the first products to be targeted. Since 2014, all the states mentioned above have enacted bans on plastic bags, with some exemptions, and have begun to move on to items such as straws, plastic bottles, utensils, and carry-out containers. Significantly, many of these bans were first seen at the local level as early as 2007 and many cities, towns, and counties have enacted highly restrictive plastic bans, while seventeen states have some sort of state-level preemption that precludes localities from enacting such policies.
State and federal policy in the United States has yet to significantly target plastic-based nonwoven products however hand wipes have been included in some legislation requiring plastic items to be available only upon request. This is likely to change in the coming years as some states, such as Massachusetts, have seen the introduction of wide-sweeping plastic ban legislation that would prohibit the sale of plastic-containing wipes. While that language is not expected to become law in Massachusetts in 2024, the inclusion of wipes in such legislation should indicate to the nonwovens industry that state-level regulation of plastic containing nonwovens should not be something to overlook.
This increased focus on state government affairs is a trend we have seen throughout industry groups as many groups have recognized that while Congressional dysfunction continues, resources must be invested to educate state policymakers about the importance of making science-based policy decisions.
European Mandates
Meanwhile, the European Commission’s single-use plastics directive, which stemmed from the commission’s 2018 plastics strategy has become well-known for its breadth and is among the most discussed regulatory developments in the nonwovens industry in recent years. The directive is ostensibly targeted at reducing marine litter and targets items based on the most commonly found plastic items on beaches. Nonwoven products including absorbent hygiene and wet wipes were addressed in the directive, which includes approaches including bans, reduction targets, and Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) schemes where producers contribute to clean-up costs and consumer awareness campaigns.
Our friends at EDANA have been engaged with the European Single-Use Plastics Directive since its launch in 2018, signing on to a variety of position statements calling for revisions to the definition of plastic to ensure cellulose fibers would not be included in the scope of the regulation, and in 2020 calling for a withdrawal or revision of the EU’s seven-year budget that included a plastics tax that would an 80 cent levy on each kilogram of non-recycled plastic packaging, which the European Commission calculated would generate €6.6 billion a year.
One criticism of Europe’s single-use plastics policies has been a perceived lack of emphasis on bioplastics as a piece of the puzzle in solving the issue of plastics pollution. A 2022 “EU policy framework on biobased, biodegradable and compostable plastics” laid out the thinking of the EU’s approach to plastics stating that “The EU’s transition to a circular, resource-efficient and climate neutral economy, together with the ambition to reach zero pollution and the need to protect and enhance biodiversity have triggered an overall rethinking of how plastics are produced, used and disposed of.”
In weighing potential subsidies and other options for encouraging the increased production and use of bioplastics, the EU has stated bio-materials will need to be labeled in a manner that would indicate how long it would take to biodegrade and whether, for example, if the material can be home composted or if it would require industrial composting.
European Technical Committee for Standardization for biobased products (CEN/TC411) has shouldered most of the EU’s ongoing work regarding bioplastics definitions and in 2021 released the first EU standards for biobased products, which included details on terminology, sampling, certification, bio-based content, life cycle analysis, and sustainability criteria for biomass used and for final products.
The EU is expected to prioritize circularity when weighing potential regulations. For example, in a 2022 proposal on packaging legislation, the EU stated that it wanted to prioritize bioplastics made from waste byproducts rather than bioplastics made from crops grown specifically for that purpose in order to avoid using extra land and agricultural resources that, according to the EU, would further “strain” the environment.
Influential Actions
The EU and national governments aren’t the only bodies discussing bold action on plastics and sustainability. At the United Nations, there is an ongoing treaty negotiation regarding plastic pollution. The ongoing treaty negotiations are formally titled “Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee to develop an international legally binding instrument on plastic pollution, including in the marine environment.” The treaty is slated for a fifth in-person negotiation session in late-November 2024 following a slow start during the first four sessions and delegations are being pressured to meet a self-imposed deadline to finalize a treaty by the end of 2024.
The more ambitious countries and NGOs engaged in treaty negotiations have called for a treaty that phases out the global production of most types of plastics while others have promoted an application-based approach that looks at which plastics applications are most likely to contribute to environmental harm. Furthermore, much of the conversations surrounding the treaty have included conversations about whether the treaty should be comprised of voluntary national action plans or a more robust legally binding international agreement. INDA and EDANA are engaged in the UN plastics treaty process as accredited UN stakeholders and will continue to provide feedback to the UN on behalf of the global nonwoven industry.
In conclusion, sustainability trends are rightfully at the top of mind for most in the nonwovens industry. While the United States and Europe are at different points in terms of plastics and sustainability regulation, the overarching themes are very much the same, with some U.S. states looking to legislate more aggressively and quickly than the U.S. federal government when it comes to environmental issues.
Outside the United States, from Europe to the United Nations, plastics and sustainability are at the top of mind for policymakers. Over the next decade, it is expected that the focus on these issues will only expand with more products, including many nonwovens, that had not been previously regulated, having the potential to be pulled into scope. Throughout this period of significant regulatory activity, INDA will continue to advocate for regulators to take into account the importance of nonwoven materials and the need for flexibility in regulation to allow for innovation.
