policy pushes companies to create change!!!

I love consumer goods and consumer packaging specifically I find extremely fascinating and I was in the grocery store today and I noticed that Babybel has changed their iconic packaging on the outside to be paper. It used to be a cellophane which was a bio-based material but essentially functioned as a plastic. And while I think this is an incredible drive for sustainability in terms of creating change and lasting impact and I researched it it's because they're trying to create more recyclable products. I work in EPR and if you haven't heard about EPR laws, the packaging EPR laws force producers such as Babybel to pay a fee for the packaging that they're putting on the market. And so I came home and I quickly researched their switch in Oregon. Their previous packaging they would have paid a dollar and two cents per pound in Oregon and now they're going to pay eight cents per pound. And in California it would have been 33 cents per pound for their old packaging and this new packaging would be two cents per pound. And while we think those numbers are small, if you think about how many pounds of this paper packaging or the previous plastic packaging a company like Babybel is putting on the market, that is significant change. 31 cents per pound that they're saving in California. So this is why policy makes a difference and why policy drives real impact. They haven't come out and said that that's why they made this change, but I cannot believe that EPR didn't play a role in why Babybel has changed their packaging.