SB5697 – Creating a system in which the sellers and distributors of consumer packaging and paper products are responsible for getting them collected, and then reused, recycled, or composted.
Prime Sponsor – Senator Das (D; 47th District; Kent) (Co-Sponsors Rolfes, Kuderer, Lovelett, Lovick, Nguyen, Pedersen, Saldaña, and Stanford – Ds)
Current status – Had a hearing on a substitute by the prime sponsor in the Senate Committee on Environment, Energy & Technology  January 18th. Replaced by a second substitute from the prime sponsor and passed out of committee February 2nd. Referred to Ways and Means and scheduled for a hearing there on February 5th. Still in committee at cutoff.
Next step would be – Dead bill.
Legislative tracking page for the bill.
HB2003 is a companion bill in the House.

Summary –

Substitute –
The second substitute makes further changes which are summarized by staff in a page of small print at the beginning of it.

Original bill –
The bill would create a system in which the sellers and distributors of consumer packaging and paper products were responsible for getting them collected, and then reused, recycled, or composted. They would be required to join a producer responsibility organization, which would submit a nine year plan for approval to the Department of Ecology, implement it, and report to Ecology on its plan performance in specified ways. Ecology would be authorized to collect a fee from producer responsibility organizations to cover the costs of the statewide needs assessment, would administer the program, and would appoint and support an advisory council for it.

The bill is 74 pages long; there’s already a proposed substitute from the prime sponsor, which is what will be heard in committee. (It’s in the folder for the bill on this page with materials for the hearing.). There’s a staff report on the substitute.