Listen to the Highlights and Key Themes from The Anual HCPA Meeting Here:
Uncover the five key themes shaping the household and commercial products landscapes for 2025 as Victoria Meyer delves into insights from the HCPA annual meeting in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. For professionals in the chemical industry, staying informed about regulatory changes, state-level initiatives, and sustainability efforts is crucial.
Victoria explores critical topics such as EPA regulations, state legislation alignment, extended producer responsibility, and the drive towards greener products. State-level regulation shifts are creating complex challenges, and the introduction of new administrations may have significant impacts on policies and business practices. Featuring clips from conversations with industry experts like Steve Caldeira, Steve Bennett, Mike Gruber, Nicholas Georges, and Molly Blessing, this episode provides a deep dive into the priorities and pressing issues within the HCPA.
Join us to learn more about the following topics this week:
- HCPA’s overarching themes: safety, efficacy, appropriate use, and transparency, in products and regulations
- Building a more effective EPA and keeping consumers safe through PRIA and TSCA
- Navigating state regulations and driving alignment
- Making sustainability more available and easier to engage with in the chemical industry
- Safe use of household and commercial products
- Effects of Trump’s Administration on the chemical industry
Killer Quote: “Without the federal regulatory system working, or the EPA working effectively, the states step up. And the challenge when the states step up is each of them apply different regulations. There’s 50 regulations that potentially have to be monitored, understood, complied with.” —Victoria Meyer
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Watch this Highlight Episode on Youtube Here:
5 Key Themes for Household & Commercial Products in 2025
Hi, this is Victoria Meyer. Welcome back to The Chemical Show, Where Chemicals Means Business. Today I am sharing with you Five Key Themes for 2025 for Household and Commercial Products. So what is this all about? This is a highlight and compilation episode. I recently returned from the HCPA annual meeting in Fort Lauderdale. First of all, what is HCPA and why should I care? So the HCPA is the Household and Commercial Products Association. It represents 180 billion in products that are used for cleaning, protecting, maintaining and disinfecting our homes and our commercial environments, whether they’re offices, stores, hospitals, et cetera.
At home, these are many of the products that you have under your sink, in your cleaning closet, whatever you’ve got. So cleaning products, antimicrobials, pest control, and more. So what I thought was really interesting about this is, it is a lot about the finished products themselves, but there’s also the chemicals and the other ingredients that are part of this. If you are a fan of how stuff is made and there’s a few different shows on that, then HCPA is a fascinating place for you.
I’m actually doing something unique this time in that, I’ve recorded a bunch of individual interviews with HCPA staff and some of their board members. Those interviews are available on The Chemical Show’s YouTube channel. Yes, if you didn’t know this, it is a podcast and yes, we have a YouTube channel. YouTube is actually one of the biggest podcasting outlets today. It’s a growing place. So go check those interviews out at youtube.com/thechemicalshowpodcast. And if you just search for The Chemical Show Podcast, you’re going to find it, but you can also direct link there and we will make sure there’s a direct link for you in your show notes.
Once you get there, number one, subscribe. If you’re not already subscribing to The Chemical Show on YouTube, you definitely should do that because there’s some great content that we put out for you on a regular basis, not just what we publish on our audio podcast, but also some special stuff, just like we’re doing this week with HCPA. Also when you go out there, you’re going to want to check out some of the HCPA leaders, including Steve Caldeira, who is the president and CEO of HCPA, Steve Bennett, Nicholas Georges, Molly Blessing, and Mike Gruber. So a lot of great conversations that I’m sharing. especially for you.
So here we go.
Five themes. And these are themes I picked up both from the staff members, but also from the attendees and member companies during sessions and during breaks, right? So there’s a lot of things that are really relevant to you both as an individual consumer. I found personally fascinating some of these aspects as well as business leaders. An overarching theme in all of this, which I think is so critical, just an overarching theme for HCPA itself is around safety, efficacy, appropriate use and transparency, both of the products and of the regulations. So those are some themes that are just so critical to the products that we have in our homes and businesses, and really are critical to ensuring that they’re feasible. That we’re actually able to produce and sell and buy and distribute, as well as the safe usage. So that is one of those themes that maybe it was an overarching theme and underpinning theme, certainly throughout.
And in fact it’s not actually one of my five themes.
So my five themes. Number one, effective federal EPA regulations and appropriate EPA appropriations funding. Why? Without funds, the EPA is understaffed. We know that, we’ve seen this. In fact, we’ve seen this quite a lot over the past few years. Slow approvals for new products, especially when we think about all the sustainable products that we are trying to deliver to our customers. A more effective EPA actually ends up being better for the industry. So a lot of companies are relying on EPA Safer Choice for transparency. Consumers rely on EPA Safer Choice. We talked about things like PRIA, which is the Pesticide Registration Improvement Act, something that has to get done every four or five years, as well as TSCA reform.
In fact, I’m going to share a couple of clips here. The first is from Steve Caldeira, who is the president and CEO of HCPA, and he talks about some of the key themes for HCPA as it goes forward, which include PRIA and TSCA reform.
What are your priorities today?
Steve Calderia: Certainly TSCA reform. President Obama signed that in June of 2016. Certainly the Pesticide Registration Improvement Act, is only authorized for 5 years, so we’re working on PRIA6, and increasingly, issues have moved to the state. EPR, Extended Producer Responsibility, and including household hazardous waste. So we’re trying to deal with these increasing issues, our recycling, microplastics, air quality, et cetera, and the states are increasing, California, Oregon, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Washington State, and the like.
Yeah, there’s a lot of activity going on. And what strikes me about some of this is, all the topics that you’ve talked about are not just in the industry discussion. They’re also out in the general public, and many of these products touch individuals and consumers. They’re in our homes, they’re in our offices, they’re in our buildings. So how do you guys navigate, not just across the industry and administration, but as you think about consumers, where does the consumer influence come in?
Steve Calderia: Like I said, we collaborate with unique stakeholders, including industry and NGOs. We just don’t say no to a regulation or proposed legislation. And we do it on behalf of our member companies so they can provide innovative more sustainable, cleaner, greener products to our consumers.
And then the second clip I’m going to share with you is my conversation with Steve Bennett, who is the EVP of Scientific and Regulatory Affairs. The question I asked Steve was, aren’t we done with TSCA reform? Hasn’t it been reformed already? And the answer to that is yes and no.
One of the things we’ve been talking about a little bit is TSCA. And you’re going to have to give us the definition of TSCA because I can never get that definition right or what the acronym stands for.
But I honestly thought TSCA was done. I thought we agreed on TSCA and yet I’m really learning that’s not the case. So can you talk about, first of all, what does TSCA stand for? And secondly, what are we trying to accomplish with TSCA today?
Steve Bennett: TSCA, or the Toxic Substances Control Act, originally passed in 1976. I’m not going to say where I was at that point in time. It was reformed in 2016. That point in time was when the industry and the environmental community came together to address needs in TSCA. Because, the 40 year old regulation had never been updated. It needed some fine tuning, a lot of fine tuning. One of the biggest drivers at that point in time was restoring confidence in the EPA. When there’s a lack of confidence in the EPA, other stakeholders, being primarily states, are going to help step in to address that lack of confidence.
And we certainly heard a lot about that as well.
Steve Bennett: Frankly in the intervening years since 2016, EPA has not been able to fully restore that confidence. Certainly there’s periods of time when the NGO community has not been happy about the EPA’s direction and there’s certainly times, clearly now, where industry is not happy with the EPA and that’s made it particularly challenging for industry to get done what they need to do.
I certainly hear a lot from companies I talk to, introducing new products is just difficult. To get a new product introduced is hard, even though we apparently really want some of these products. Can you talk more about that?
Steve Bennett: Yeah, so if you have a product in the marketplace and you want to replace an ingredient or completely reformulate your product, you’re going to have a new ingredient in some way, shape or form a more sustainable, more durable, new product qualities, you want to have that newer chemistry and to get that newer chemistry that has to be approved by EPA. That’s been by far one of the biggest challenges getting that approved in a reasonable amount of time and in a manner that you could be able to market it in the market and sell that product in the marketplace. And at the same time, you’re also running into the challenges with the current chemistry that is out there, that has a distinct advantage. It’s already in the marketplace, so you’ve got to compete against that. So that has made it challenging for companies to get those newer chemistries into the marketplace.
Yet products are getting phased out.
Steve Bennett: Yes, and you probably saw headlines in the New York Times and Washington Post this week on a couple chemicals that have legacy chemicals, mostly legacy chemicals, that the agency is phasing out. In many cases that’s appropriate.
So has TSCA been effective in helping to phase out those chemicals?
Steve Bennett: Yes and no. It’s certainly trying to move the marketplace, but it’s a long process and it takes a lot of information and a lot of data to move those appropriately. If you’re going to rephase out a particular chemistry, it’d be nice if there’s a replacement for that particular chemistry because in many cases it’s filling a critical need.
The second key theme is around navigating state regulations and driving alignment. So one of the things that goes along with having an effective or ineffective federal regulatory platform through the EPA and elsewhere is, when the federal government is less effective and our federal systems are left less effective. Let’s talk about the EPA it leaves the door open for the states to take action and they have. So this proliferation of state regulations, whether it be EPR, extended producer responsibility, which we’re going to talk about a little bit more, or elsewhere it’s really burdensome. And so certain states have become very active with this.
So not just California. And I certainly think about California as having driven this for a long time. If you think about the labels that are on your mattresses and pillows, a lot of it is driven by California regulations, but we’re also seeing this with Oregon, Minnesota, Maine, other states, maybe jockeying for position to take the lead. Because as one state sets regulations, many others start to follow.
I’m going to bring in a clip here from Mike Gruber, who is the EVP of Government Relations and Public Policy, who talks about why this matters and why this is a priority, not just for HCPA, but also for its member companies, just in trying to navigate state regulations and driving alignment across that.
Mike Gruber: We just want to make sure that government agencies, whether it’s the federal agency or a state agency, actually are functioning well and doing the job they need to do, but making sure they’re doing it in a way that we can get innovations to market. So that there’s a process through which we can provide formal comments and they’re considered, and that we have working relationships with regulators, both at the federal and state level.
Got it. So I think that federal and state balance is interesting because it seems like that balance has shifted and it’s shifted significantly in the past several years at least. Can you talk about that?
Mike Gruber: Yeah. So when I started out, when I left Capitol Hill in 2012 to become a federal lobbyist for The Consumer Brands Association, which at that time was grocery manufacturers. My primary work was federal. It’s where we could work on legislation that would say, have a federal preemption provision to try and prevent states from going haywire and passing multiple packaging labeling requirements that would create a patchwork problem for the industry. Over time, we have seen states really almost race to be the strongest regulator on ingredients, on packaging, on sustainability measures in the chemical space. 10-12 years ago, what was 100% federal for me has now become probably 85% state.
With this navigating state regulations, one of the big topics, and this is not a theme, but it just ties into our state regulations piece is around EPR, extended producer responsibility. We’re hearing about this a lot. So EPR is here and companies need to be prepared. So what is this all about? It’s really about packaging. A lot of times it’s plastic packaging. It also applies to aerosols and it’s about putting the responsibility for end of life of these packaging materials back on the producers. It’s a lot of tracking, and reporting, and navigating this. This is an area that HCPA and its members are very focused on.
In 2025, three states are requiring reporting. So this is what’s critical about this. Oregon, Colorado and California each have implemented EPR laws that are taking effect now, in 2025. So if you’re not ready, get ready, stay tuned.
My third theme that comes out of HCPA is around sustainability and innovation. So sustainability is really a key theme across the board in the industry. HCPA is no different there. I’m going to share a clip from Molly Blessing, who is their VP of Sustainability. and Molly and I talked about just the importance of lightweighting of packaging, greener and more sustainable products. The ability to have effective recycling.
So if you think of these things start linking together, we talked about EPR and EPR as it relates to packaging. One of the focus areas is around aerosol recycling. And Molly talks about this focus to drive, aerosol recycling access rate to 85%. So again, access is important. Controlling the individual is a little bit trickier, but one of the themes is really around focusing on making products and accessibility for recycling and accessibility for sustainability, more available and easier to engage with and take on.
I’m including a clip here from Molly.
Molly Blessing: We have three big picture focus areas. So I should say for us, we take a very product centric approach. We don’t necessarily get into the high level corporate reporting requirements. We were focused on what product is reaching the end consumer or the end user. How do we make that better? How do we make that better in a way that’s tangible to them? So we have three different focus areas. One is the sustainable chemistry. So what’s actually going into that product formulation? The second is the packaging. So what materials are we using to package that product? How are we doing that? Is it perhaps set up in a system that incentivizes reuse or refill? Is it set up in a way that reduces the weight of the packaging? Could we perhaps use more recycled content, less virgin material? Those kinds of questions are what we’re asking on the packaging side. And that’s been a really big focus area for us. I would say of our three, that’s been the one to take by far the most attention.
And I know that you’ve talked about aerosol recycling and the focus there.
Molly Blessing: Yeah. So we started an aerosol recycling initiative with our partner, our sister trade association, the Can Manufacturers Institute, CMI. We launched that back in May of 2022. That initiative has two goals that are both quantitative and time bound. So by 2030, we’re aiming to increase the aerosol recycling access rate to 85%. So that’s making sure that exactly that 85% of the population has access to recycle their empty aerosols. Which would be a pretty big jump from where we are right now. The most recent numbers we had from the sustainable packaging coalition were just above 60%.
That’s better than I would have expected.
Molly Blessing: I should say though, we recently had a revamp methodology that looked at just more specific messaging that dropped us down to 39%. So there’s a ways to go there, but we also have some very great ideas for how to make progress, including talking to the Murphs that are perhaps more resistant to accepting aerosols and making sure that we’re addressing the safety concerns that they have on that end.
Yeah and then, of course, one of the big challenges, and I know that this is something that HCPA is interested and concerned about, as well as your member companies, is really extending it to the consumer, because even myself as an educated consumer, I get confused as to what I’m allowed to do, what I’m not allowed to do, what I can recycle, what I can’t. So I think that whole education process getting through to the consumers becomes critical.
Molly Blessing: That’s a great segue to our second goal for the aerosol recycling initiative, which is to have 90% of aerosols labeled with information about their recyclability and also how to appropriately recycle the can.
So the fourth theme that comes out of HCPA, and this to me ties to transparency and safe use. This one is around just monitoring and systems that are getting put in place around use and the misuse of products. So the misuse of products was actually quite high as a conversational area. In particular misuse of aerosol products.
There’s a lot of conversation around dusters, which is like the aerosol cans that may be used to clean your computer keyboard and other things. Real concern about the misuse of those aerosol products that people are acquiring them, and huffing them is I guess the technical term. Is that a non technical term? I’m not exactly sure. It’s basically to get high, and it’s a problem. Because as you and I both know, we spend a lot of time, effort, and resources to make sure that the products and whether they’re chemical products, the finished goods that we create are safe and effective for their intended use. And then you have to guard against misuse, which is a challenging area. Because how do you guard against human’s creativity to do things they’re not supposed to do. So anyway, this is an area of focus, an area of conversation and continued focus for HCPA and its member companies.
I’ve got a clip here from Nicholas Georges talking about navigating this.
So the other thing you touched on is this misuse of products. And I know from the conversations I had with folks yesterday, certainly in the aerosol committee, that was a big topic of discussion. I guess in my naive world, I didn’t realize it was such a big issue, but just the sheer misuse of aerosol products as people are trying to get high.
What’s the role of HCPA in this? We go through all the efforts trying to produce products that are effective, safe, understand what the uses are, et cetera, complying to state and federal and local regulations. And then there’s misuse. How does HCPA come into that?
Nicolas Georges: So this is a topic we’ve been working on for decades, and we’ve had some successes, but we’ve also seen rises in the uptick of people abusing these types of products again, unfortunately, the aerosol industry back in the nineties came up with a voluntary stand to have enhanced labeling. To warn users and the general public about the dangers of intentionally abusing these products. when you want to concentrate a vapor, you’re displacing the oxygen. That’s gonna have an effect on your system. Whether it’s your brain, your lungs, your other systems within your body.
Right.
Nicolas Georges: That’s just gonna be the natural reaction that’s gonna take place there. The displacement of oxygen, that’s the euphoric high that you’re getting there.
Got it.
Nicolas Georges: Now, you’re talking about products that are convenient and readily available for low cost. That’s what makes these, among other consumer products, very attractive to those that seek the behaivor. Now that warning, for the uneducated, that warning is to say, oh, don’t do this. But the reality is the people that are seeking this behavior and the reason why HCPA works with substance abuse experts is to recognize the warning isn’t to deter the use. Because the people that are seeking that behavior, they already know that they can do this. They know what products they can go to, and if they can’t get product A, they’re just going to go to product B or product C, whatever they can get their hands on. It’s to warn the loved ones in their lives, though, when they see 12 cans in the bedroom or the car. What’s happening? Why is this taking place? And when you see these enhanced warnings that aren’t required by government, that we’re doing ourselves because we know there’s an issue, that’s part of the discussion to hopefully educate them from that standpoint.
Yeah.
Nicolas Georges: Because so much of this is just awareness.
My fifth and final theme is around watching and waiting for the new administration and the effects that is going to have. So the Trump administration takes seat in January and new administrations are not a new thing, right? Every four years, the US has this opportunity to have some changes on Capitol Hill and in the White House. So there’s always this expectation as it relates to government agencies, the EPA for instance, about what changes are going to take place. So we know there’s been a lot of vocalization of new ways of working that are expected.
So consideration here, and it weighs certainly on the conversations within each HCPA and across its member companies. What new ways of working come to bear? There’s been a lot of conversation, of course, in the public discord around the role of tariffs, right? And whether the 60 percent tariffs that had been suggested for China apply that has a big significant financial implication and then really the thing that I heard a lot of Conversation around is DOGE and what the effect of DOGE is and DOGE if you don’t know is the Department of Government Efficiency. That’s gonna be led by Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy.
And a real concern about what that means for the EPA and the funding for the EPA, the impact that has, because again, one of the themes that comes through, and I talked about it early on and it comes through here at the end, is this need for transparency and alignment.
Without the federal regulatory system working (the EPA working) effectively the states step up. The challenge when the states step up is that they each are applying different regulations. There’s 50 regulations that potentially have to be monitored, understood, complied with. Nicholas Georges, when I talked with him a bit and in fact, you’re going to want to go over and look at the Youtube video for that one because we had a number of great conversations, a number of things that came through.
One was just one of the challenges, of course, is you can have something that is maybe a state puts in place a regulation, but it actually doesn’t comply with a federal regulation. So we get a lot of misalignment. So that was a conversation that came through with everyone, whether it was Mike Gruber, Nicholas George, Steve Caldeira, is this whole concern, by the way, not just those guys, but people across the organization that were there, the several hundred people about what the effect is of watching and waiting for the new administration, the new rules that are coming in, how the EPA is going to be funded and frankly, what it means for business.
Those are my themes. Again, I really encourage you to head over to our YouTube channel. So you can just search for The Chemical Show podcast on YouTube and you’re going to find it or the direct link is youtube.com/thechemicalshowpodcast, and you will find all of our episodes, and some special things. As it relates to the conversations I had at HCPA’s annual meeting, you’re going to find a number of interviews with HCPA leaders right there. It’s short and sweet, 10 to 15 minutes each. So go in and listen and learn more about what those priorities are and how they are affecting the chemical industry, all the other products and industries that are part of HCPA and more.
So that is it for today. Thank you for listening. Keep listening, keep following, keep sharing, and we will talk with you again soon.
About:
Michael Gruber
Michael Gruber is the Executive Vice President of Government Relations & Public Policy at the Household & Commercial Products Association (HCPA). As part of the executive leadership team, he enhances HCPA’s influence across federal and state legislative and regulatory landscapes, leveraging extensive bipartisan experience. Previously, Michael served as Vice President of Public Policy at the Consumer Brands Association, where he advanced key federal and state advocacy initiatives, including the National Bioengineered Food Disclosure Standard and regulatory implementation of the Food Safety Modernization Act. He also played a pivotal role in developing SmartLabel™, a leading digital consumer transparency platform.
Before joining the Consumer Brands Association, Michael was a senior policy adviser to the House Energy & Commerce Committee and served in various legislative and leadership roles on Capitol Hill, including chief of staff and appropriations associate staff for Rep. Tom Latham. Early in his career, he worked in public affairs and corporate public relations. A seasoned advocate and strategist, Michael lives on Capitol Hill with his spouse, Gretchen Lamberg, their two teenage children, and two rescue dogs.
Molly Blessing
Molly Blessing is a chemist with experience in corporate product stewardship, global chemical regulation, and green chemistry. As Vice President, Sustainability & Product Stewardhip, Molly leads HCPA’s sustainability efforts. She also serves as the Division Staff Executive for the Air Care Products Division.
Prior to joining HCPA, Molly was a Product Safety and Regulatory Affairs Specialist Lead for Adhesive Technologies at Henkel, where she served as a subject matter expert on product stewardship and TSCA. She also served as an Assistant Regulatory Chemist at Bergeson & Campbell, P.C. and interned with the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)’s Green Chemistry Program. Molly has a B.S. in Chemistry from the University of Connecticut, a Master of International Affairs from Columbia University with a concentration in Energy and the Environment, and an M.S. in Product Stewardship from Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis.
Nicholas Georges
Nicholas Georges is the Senior Vice President, Scientific & International Affairs of the Household & Commercial Products Association (HCPA). Georges leads HCPA’s activity on aerosol products and industrial & automotive products, as well as multiple scientific and regulatory areas both domestically and internationally such as air quality. Georges has a monthly column in Spray Technology & Marketing and often contributes to other publications such as World Aerosols and Aerosol Europe.
Before joining HCPA, Georges was the Director of Regulatory Affairs at PLZ Aeroscience and the Technical Director at Nyco Products Company. Georges has a B.S. in Chemistry from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.
Steve Calderia
Steve Caldeira is the President & CEO of the Household & Commercial Products Association (HCPA), representing members responsible for $180 billion in annual economic output and 200,000 direct jobs. HCPA members manufacture and sell trusted products that promote cleaner, healthier, and more sustainable environments. With over 30 years of experience in legislative, regulatory, political, and leadership roles, Steve works with the HCPA Board to execute strategic priorities. Previously, he served as President & CEO of the International Franchise Association, where he significantly increased revenue, expanded advocacy efforts, and elevated the organization’s profile. He has also held senior leadership positions at Dunkin’ Brands, PepsiCo, the National Restaurant Association, and Burson-Marsteller.
Steve serves on numerous boards and councils, including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation, the National Association of Manufacturers, and the Bryce Harlow Foundation. He has been recognized with several awards, including ASAE’s Policy Leadership Award and The Hill’s “Top Lobbyist” honor for seven consecutive years. A Providence College graduate with a B.A. in Political Science, Steve also holds an Honorary Doctorate from Johnson & Wales University. Residing in Potomac, Maryland, with his wife Jane, he remains deeply committed to philanthropy and community service, having raised millions for scholarships and humanitarian causes.
Steven Bennett
Steve Bennett leads the Scientific Affairs, Regulatory Affairs, International Affairs, and Strategic Alliances & Industry Relations functions for HCPA. Steven is responsible for leading the scientific department, developing science policies and positions, and providing scientific guidance on issues covering HCPA’s product divisions. He is currently leading HCPA’s TSCA implementation efforts and is the staff executive for the Pest Management Divisions. Steven works with HCPA member companies on technical aspects pertaining to green chemistry, air quality, sustainability, California’s Proposition 65, and poison prevention issues. Steven serves as the Association’s primary external spokesperson on scientific, technical and sustainability issues.
Prior to joining HCPA, Steven worked as a scientist and chemist for E.A. Engineering, taught several years in academia, and continues to lecture in the Environmental Science and Policy Master’s Program at Johns Hopkins University. Steven holds a Ph.D. in Inorganic Chemistry from the University of Delaware and a Bachelor of Science in Chemistry from Lock Haven University (Pennsylvania).