How EPR fees are calculated — and the four moves Sealstrip uses to lower your exposure: reduce weight, minimize components, enable recyclability, and go mono-material — without slowing the line.

Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) has changed the math on packaging. In a growing list of U.S. states — including California, Colorado, Oregon, Minnesota, and Maine — and across the EU, producers are now financially responsible for the end-of-life of the packaging they put on the market. That turns every design choice, right down to a reseal or easy-open feature, into a line item on your compliance bill. The good news: the moves that lower your EPR fees are ones Sealstrip is built to support — so you can treat this guide as your EPR playbook rather than standing up a separate program.

How your EPR fee is calculated

Most programs start from a base fee, then adjust it up or down — this is, at its base, eco-modulation. The factors that move your fee:

• Weight — how much material the package uses
• Material type — the polymers involved and whether they’re recyclable
• Recyclability — how cleanly the package can be recovered
• Format, sortability, and contamination risk — how easily it moves through a recycling facility

Lower fees go to recyclable, mono-material, high-PCR, and simple designs. Higher fees hit multilayer and mixed-material structures, small formats, and hard-to-sort items. Your convenience feature feeds straight into these factors, which is why the material and design of a reseal or easy-open feature can move your fee in either direction.

Source reduction is now the #1 lever

The biggest shift in EPR is that using less plastic has become the top priority — ahead of recycled content or end-of-life claims. California’s framework (SB 54), for example, requires source reduction on the order of 10–25% in both plastic weight and the number of plastic components as its targets phase in. And every element counts toward that total: labels, liners, tear strips, seals, and film layers are all in scope — not just the bag. That puts your convenience feature squarely on the table, and makes a lighter, simpler feature a genuine compliance win.

Sealstrip’s EPR fee-reduction strategy

Sealstrip’s features are built around the four moves that lower EPR exposure:

• Reduce weight — use less plastic per package
• Minimize components — fewer separate parts and less complexity
• Enable recyclability — keep the package recovery-ready
• Utilize mono-material — one polymer family throughout

The goal is to help brands reduce EPR cost exposure while still delivering the practical resealable performance that protects the product, keeps it contained, and keeps it fresh — so you’re never trading a compliance win for more product waste. Here are the levers in order of impact.

1. Use less plastic (lightweighting)

Because fees are weight-based, this is the highest-impact lever — and Sealstrip’s tape-based approach is built for it. A pressure-sensitive reseal uses far less material and adds far less weight than a mechanical zipper, so switching to a Sealstrip reseal is a lighter path to reclosability. Roll&Seal for bag-in-box goes further, applying only a short length of tape in the ideal spot rather than a full-width closure — less material per unit, multiplied across a full run. And because every system retrofits onto the wrapper you already run, you cut material without adding equipment.

2. Design for recyclability (mono-material, recycle-ready)

The next lever is keeping the whole package recoverable in one stream. Mono-material designs sort and recycle more cleanly and land in higher recyclability grades, while a mixed-polymer closure pulls the grade — and the fee — the wrong way. VerdeSeal is Sealstrip’s recycle-ready answer: a proprietary, mono-material pressure-sensitive tape that delivers the same easy-open and resealable performance with no loss in line efficiency. It’s available across Peel&Seal, FreshPak, Sealstrip, and SealAcross.

3. Minimize components and complexity

Under source-reduction rules, every added part is another element counted — and potentially penalized. A Sealstrip reseal can consolidate functions instead of stacking parts: FreshPak and SealAcross deliver easy open, reseal, and tamper evidence in a single feature, with no tear-away/added film — fewer discrete components doing more of the work.

4. Add PCR content (helpful, but not a substitute)

Post-consumer recycled content is a recognized lower-fee characteristic, and it appears as one of the compliance pathways in California’s framework — but it’s treated as a limited, alternative pathway. It doesn’t replace the need to reduce weight or improve design, and it won’t offset a heavy or hard-to-recycle structure. PCR content also lives mainly in the film, not the reseal. Where Sealstrip helps is compatibility: we work to develop and offer materials to match your package film needs- such as PCR- so your convenience feature keeps the package PCR investment - rather than undercutting it.

Sustainability and FDA compliance, together

Lowering fees shouldn’t cost you food safety. Materials for food, medical device, and OTC or personal-care features still need to meet FDA compliance for food contact — even when reformulated for recyclability. Sealstrip pressure-sensitive tapes are built with that in mind: FDA food compliance is part of the technology, and Sealstrip’s materials are made in the USA in a facility certified under the GFSI-recognized IFS PACsecure standard.

Questions to ask before you add a feature

1. How much weight and material does it add versus what I’m replacing? Weight is the biggest fee lever, so a zipper-to-tape switch should come with a real material reduction — not just a “lighter” claim.

2. Does it keep my package mono-material and recoverable in one stream? Recyclability grade drives your fee. Sealstrip’s VerdeSeal is designed as mono-material structure and hold the whole package in one recycle-ready stream.

3. How many separate components does it add? Source-reduction rules count every element. A tape feature — or a single system that combines open, reseal, and tamper evidence — keeps the part count down.

4. If I use PCR film, does the feature stay compatible? PCR helps, more so when reducing weight or design. VerdeSeal mono-material structure can also keep the package in one stream so the content still counts.

Frequently asked questions

How can packaging design lower my EPR fees?

Most EPR programs use eco-modulation, which lowers fees for packaging that weighs less, is recyclable and mono-material, and uses simple designs — and raises them for heavy, multilayer, or hard-to-sort packaging. In order of impact the levers are: use less plastic, design for recyclability, minimize components, and add PCR content. Sealstrip’s features are built to support all four.

What’s the single most effective way to cut EPR fees?

Source reduction — using less plastic. Fees are weight-based, and frameworks like California’s SB 54 require reductions in both plastic weight and the number of components. A tape-based reseal is lighter than a mechanical zipper and adds fewer parts, so it targets the highest-impact lever directly.

Does adding PCR content lower my EPR fees?

It can — PCR is a recognized lower-fee characteristic and one of California’s compliance pathways. But it’s a limited, alternative pathway: it doesn’t replace reducing weight or improving design, and it can’t offset a heavy or hard-to-recycle structure. However, Sealstrip features are developed to be ligher weight by design.

Is VerdeSeal recyclable?

VerdeSeal is a mono-material, recyclability-optimized tape technology that is designed to easily fit into the recycling stream by not having varied muli-layer constuction.

How does Sealstrip support food safety and quality?

Sealstrip’s convenience-feature materials are FDA compliant and made in the USA in a facility certified under the GFSI-recognized IFS PACsecure standard, backed by more than a decade of top American Institute of Baking (AIB) ratings — so you have the food-safety documentation to support the switch.

About Sealstrip

Sealstrip Corporation has spent decades engineering easy-open and resealable convenience features for flexible packaging — pairing pressure-sensitive tapes with retrofit applicators built to fit the line you already run. Sealstrip is a WBENC-certified Women’s Business Enterprise (WBE), a member of the Flexible Packaging Association, and manufactures in the USA in a facility certified under the GFSI-recognized IFS PACsecure standard.

Working through EPR compliance? Sealstrip can help you cut weight, minimize components, and keep your convenience feature mono-material and recycle-ready with VerdeSeal — and add it to a sample of your own packaging so you can test it. Call 1-888-658-7997.