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Designing What Works: From Policy to Practice in America’s Circular Economy
Protecting Essential Workers, Strengthening Communities, and
Unlocking Real Economic and Environmental Benefits
Designing What Works: From Policy to Practice in America’s Circular Economy is a guide created for policymakers and practitioners who are working to turn circular economy policy into real-world systems that work.
Across the United States, communities are adopting new stewardship and circular economy laws. But passing a bill is only the beginning. The hardest and most consequential work happens in implementation where policy meets infrastructure, markets, workers, and the public.
The National Stewardship Action Council (NSAC) advances smart, well-designed circular economy policies that protect people and communities while strengthening markets and local economies. This guide reflects NSAC’s real-world experience moving policy from concept to law and from law to implementation—so programs deliver measurable results.
It is grounded in more than a decade of work advancing and implementing circular economy and stewardship policy across the United States and draws on one of the most extensive bodies of real-world expertise in the nation.
Download this guide to learn what works, what to avoid, and how to design durable systems grounded in real operations and market conditions.
What You'll Find Inside
This guide offers practical guidance for policymakers and stakeholders seeking solutions that work, including:
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Policy design principles that prioritize public health and essential worker safety
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Lessons from real-world stewardship programs across the U.S.
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Implementation considerations for markets, infrastructure, compliance, and enforcement
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Strategies that strengthen domestic end markets and resilient supply chains
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Tools for engaging stakeholders and sustaining progress over time
What NSAC’s Guide Covers
Circular economy policy can take many forms depending on the product, risk profile, available alternatives, and market conditions. This guide reflects NSAC’s experience advancing policy across its full lifecycle from drafting and negotiation through rulemaking and implementation.
It outlines the policy tools, design principles, and implementation considerations that help systems deliver real-world results for companies, governments, workers, and communities.
Policy Areas Addressed in the Guide
Packaging
Packaging policies should reduce waste in the design process, increase reuse and recycling, increase recycled content, and ensure producers fund and manage end-of-life systems that work because responsible end markets exist.
Deposit Return Systems
Deposit Return Systems increase collection rates, reduce litter, and deliver high-quality material streams for recycling. Well-designed programs complement curbside systems and provide measurable environmental and economic benefits.
Household Hazardous Waste
HHW stewardship policies prioritize public health and environmental protection by ensuring safe collection and proper management while reducing risks, costs, and liabilities for communities and essential workers.
Textiles and Carpet
Textile and carpet policies address high-volume waste streams while supporting reuse, repair, and recycling and strengthening markets for secondary materials.
Core Recommendations for Policymakers
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Lead with the why: public health, essential worker safety, cost savings, and environmental protection
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Establish shared responsibility with private sector leadership
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Define government’s role: set requirements, ensure transparency, enforce compliance
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Ground policy in real-world operations and market conditions
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Set clear performance targets, reporting requirements, and enforcement mechanisms
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Prioritize domestic end markets and resilient supply chains
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Preserve state and local leadership while encouraging voluntary harmonization
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Engage stakeholders early and throughout implementation
Why this Guide Comes from NSAC
NSAC works with local, state, and national governments alongside the private, public, and nonprofit sectors to advance policies that protect people and strengthen markets.
NSAC served as one of the key negotiators of California’s SB 54, which upon implementation will become the largest packaging stewardship program in the world.
NSAC remains engaged from policy introduction through negotiation, rulemaking, and implementation to ensure laws are carried out faithfully, with intent and integrity.
Want to Go Deeper Than a Guide?
NSAC convenes trusted, pre-competitive national working groups where interest holders engage early, share lessons, surface risks, and help shape policies and systems that work in the real world.
Circular Economy Working Groups
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Packaging & EPR Implementation Working Group
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Deposit Return Systems Working Group
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Household Hazardous Waste Working Group
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Textile Circularity Working Group
Through these forums, participants gain early insight, practical guidance, and a seat at the table where systems are designed.
If this guide was useful, you are already aligned with our work.
Learn more. Join the conversation. Help design what works.