Extended producer responsibility (EPR) is a policy approach that shifts the cost of managing post-use products, either partially or fully, from local governments to the producers of those products; some EPR laws require producers to physically manage their products at end-of-life as well. This report only uses the term EPR to refer to government laws or regulations that require producers to take on some measure of responsibility for their packaging materials or products at end-of-life. There is increasing debate in North America whether extended producer responsibility policies should be expanded to assist in progressing toward environmental objectives for products, packaging, and printed paper. There are 63 existing legislated EPR laws/programs in U.S. states. All, except for one, of these existing laws apply to products with hazardous components, including products such as batteries, electronics, mercury containing devices, household hazardous wastes.1 None currently applies to packaging and printed paper. Globally, however, packaging and printed paper EPR programs exist in over 35 non-U.S. locations including a few Canadian provinces, most European countries, and a couple of Asian countries. Because waste management is considered a local and state/provincial responsibility in the United States and Canada, there are no nationallevel EPR laws in either country and EPR decisions are made by individual states or provinces. The purpose of this project was to evaluate whether legislated EPR policies are a preferred approach for meeting environmental objectives for consumer packaging in the United States. Because there are differences of opinion over the relative importance of differing environmental objectives and the extent to which cost should be considered in achieving them, it is expected that this report will better inform but not end the discussion over packaging EPR. Also, this report focuses on packaging and printed paper, and does not evaluate whether EPR may be appropriate for those products, mostly with hazardous components, that are more common targets for EPR.