Challenge: In 2022, just 13% of plastic packaging in the U.S. gets recycled. In Colorado, the statewide recycling rate is half the national average. Colorado’s statewide recycling infrastructure didn’t exist, leaving recycling up to local jurisdictions which lack coordination, infrastructure, and efficacy. Not only is this bad for the environment, economy, and has social impacts, but without adequate recycled material, producers cannot continue to effectively repurpose and reuse their packaging. This leads to the creation of new packaging and a larger carbon footprint.

Strategy: The Colorado Beverage Association, led by The Capstone Group and representing the state’s non-alcoholic beverage industry, began working with historically non-traditional partners over the summer to build a strong coalition of environmental advocates, large producers, and key statewide stakeholders to develop a producer-led-and-paid-for statewide recycling system. For a proposal of this magnitude to gain traction in the 2022 Legislative Session, our firm help secured bipartisan sponsors, got our industry issue expert working with the coalition to draft producer driven language. We led negotiations with leadership, all producers who would be required to pay the operating fees, local counties and municipalities, and state departments to lay the groundwork for engaged parties to understand the complexity of the proposal and ensure the system wasn’t diluted in the process. The result was the introduction of HB22-1355 in April. However, despite extensive stakeholder engagement, the legislation continued to face opposition and misinformation under the dome.  The Capstone Group worked with partners to build a strong proponent coalition and legislator education campaign to give the legislation the best chance of success.  

Outcome: Facing concerns regarding the scale of the proposal from leadership in the last few weeks of the legislative session, The Capstone Group led amendment negotiations, educational meetings with all 100 legislators to assuage concerns and incorporate feedback, and ultimately built a strategy to success without diluting the goals of the program. HB22-1355 passed with bipartisan support on the final day of the legislative session with national environmental advocacy organizations and the American Beverage association touting the bill as the most comprehensive recycling bill in the country to date.