Preparing for Extended Producer Responsibility

U.S. packaging stakeholders have learned a lot this past year since Oregon became the first state to begin implementing an extended producer responsibility for packaging law. Yet the industry is still very early in the journey, according to speakers at SPC Impact in Nashville, Tennessee, from April 22-23. These were some of their insights on the direction EPR is headed.

Regulations and performance demands may only get stricter

It’s time for some tough love. “Expect that packaging regulations will stay as strict as they are today — or get stricter,” according to the Sustainable Packaging Coalition’s 2026 trends report, which the group shared during the event.

Whereas voluntary commitments once drove the sustainable packaging landscape, the space has now “entered a new, non-optional, operational phase” that is “defined by performance — how packaging moves through collection, sortation, and reprocessing — rather than promises.”

“Plan for packaging fees to increase significantly, particularly for difficult-to-recycle materials, with real consequences for falling short,” the report continues. “Assume a sizable investment in recycling infrastructure will be needed, and that your company will be part of the group paying for it.”

Treating sustainability ambition as a competitive advantage will be critical. “Compliance will keep you in the game. Designing for the big picture future of sustainable packaging will determine who leads it.”

Data organization must further level up

As producers report packaging data to comply with EPR laws, it’s starting to become clear that “we need better data — all of us,” said Brie Seferian, senior manager for extended producer responsibility for Mondelēz International’s packaging in North America. Relatively speaking, companies are still at the beginning of the process of getting data under control.

Large companies such as Mondelēz have acquired numerous businesses over the years “and everyone’s in a different system,” which has meant hunting down old spreadsheets and PDFs, Seferian said.

There’s “a lesson, I think, for the entire industry,” said Seferian. For years, data may have been shared between a packaging engineer and supplier, or an external manufacturer and procurement. “That just is not going to work that way in the future,” she said.

“I think we're all going to have to get all of our systems integrated better to be able to record these things consistently over time, and where we don’t all have a panic attack when somebody leaves” a company, she said. “We're just all going to have to really level that up, and that’s going to take a little while.” 

The meaning of sustainable design will evolve

Where does packaging sustainability stand in 2026, in light of packaging EPR? “I think the honest answer is that packaging sustainability today feels in flux,” said Amanda Humes, director of packaging stewardship at Conagra Brands.

“It's no longer just about voluntary commitments or isolated improvements within one company’s portfolio. Increasingly, it's about demonstrating accountability across the entire value chain,” Humes said. “For years, we defined packaging sustainability by these individual design attributes” — perhaps a lighter-weight package or positive findings in a life cycle assessment.

That’s evolving. “These things are still important, but EPR is increasingly changing the conversation from what a package is to how a package performs after it leaves the brand’s control,” Humes said.

There’s now “a magnifying glass on what companies mean when they say the word ‘recyclable,’” Humes said. “It is no longer just about meeting a technical definition. There's pressure to demonstrate real world recyclability outcomes.”

Likewise, there’s greater scrutiny on material swaps. It’s not as simple as a transition from plastic to paper, for instance: It requires thinking about impacts within supply chains, effects on shelf life, and more.

“If you just substitute one material for another without thinking about that entire system’s outcome, you're not eliminating environmental impact. You’re just shifting it somewhere else in the system,” she said. To be “truly sustainable” will require further time, work, infrastructure improvements and R&D collaboration throughout the value chain.

“So has packaging sustainability been revolutionized by EPR? In some ways, yes; in some ways, it's already forcing real consequences that companies can't ignore,” she said. “But in other ways, we’re still really early days.”

Consumer trust will be a metric of success

The last 18 months “feels sort of like 18 years” as producer responsibility organization Circular Action Alliance has scaled rapidly to help implement packaging EPR laws in the U.S., said CEO Jeff Fielkow. Staff is “160 strong and growing,” he said.

Five years from now, Fielkow hopes that producers will feel that CAA has been a good steward and ambassador for their funds, “and we did what we said we were going to do, which all comes down to making an impact.”

Likewise, “I would love to be on this stage and be able to tell you what a good EPR looks like,” he said. “It's not shifting dollars from a producer to reimbursement,” it's investing into and building a better system. And in building it, success includes being able to say “we brought everybody along” — including producers small and large, NGOs and disadvantaged communities, he said.

Another core piece will be consumer trust in the system. “At the end of the day ... the consumer is going to be like, ‘Why does that matter to me?’” he said.

“We're seeing this in Oregon already with the new municipal drop-off centers that are being opened,” Fielkow highlighted. That’s a case where a consumer can say, “‘You told me this was going to happen, and now I see it happening, and it makes my life easier,’” he said.

There’s a lot of friction for consumers around understanding recycling and materials management. “Success for me would be to be able to point to specific materials that we can show the consumer behavior is shifting,” he said.

Red states are coming

The Tennessee Waste to Jobs Act, an EPR bill championed for multiple years by state Sen. Heidi Campbell, was sidelined in March. Although it offers more leeway than packaging EPR laws elsewhere, it still faced opposition from industry. Campbell is looking ahead to next year and spoke about momentum in her home state — and potentially the rest of the Southeast — during SPC Impact.

“There is no reason why economic prosperity and environmentalism have to be diametrically opposed,” she said. While Campbell says using terms like “climate change” don’t get her anywhere in the Republican-dominated state legislature, the premise of developing a better recycling system from the ground up on Tennessee’s terms can solve urgent business and resident issues.

In this case, there’s “this anvil hanging over our heads” — landfills being at capacity, and Tennessee law makes it difficult to build more.

“I do think when you're pushing something like this, it's very important to have the urgency of some kind of a conflict that needs to be solved right away,” she said. “One of the many problems with the legislative landscape is there's always a tendency to try and kick things down the road.”

Tennessee has the potential to spur extended impact. “Red states usually fall in line,” which could be an advantage when it comes to momentum for this sort of policy, she said. “If we pass Tennessee Waste to Jobs, we have a very good shot of having Texas Waste to Jobs, Alabama Waste to Jobs, Kentucky Waste to Jobs.”

Dive Brief:

• Circular Action Alliance is accepting comments on its draft certification standard for responsible end markets, a component of most extended producer responsibility laws for packaging in the U.S.
• The REM standard would require certain businesses in the recycling value chain to show that recycled materials are being handled in a way that minimizes environmental and public health risks. CAA’s draft lays out the process for verifying these “responsible” claims.
• Some packaging EPR states already have REM verification provisions, but the CAA draft standard is meant to unify those requirements to ensure a consistent process across the country. The public comment period is open through July 7.

Dive Insight:

REM requirements are an important facet of packaging EPR because they’re meant to make recycling systems more transparent and trackable. The concept was born in part to fight dumping, especially after China imposed recycling import bans in 2017 and other countries followed suit,  raising more public awareness of the role some U.S. recycling systems played in exporting waste to other countries.

REMs can help rebuild trust in the recycling system by providing a “clear and credible framework that supports regulatory requirements while giving interest holders confidence in how recycling outcomes are defined, evaluated and verified,” said Victoria Norman, executive director of SCS Standards and Assurance Systems, in a statement. 

SCS, a standard development organization for sustainability certification programs, is working with CAA to develop the draft. A standard development committee made up of a range of trade groups, recyclers and state agencies, also offered input on the draft. 

In the seven states that have passed an EPR for packaging law, all but Maine’s program include REM provisions. The specifics vary from state to state, but most players in the recycling value chain — starting downstream of MRFs and including brokers, processors and others — need to comply with rules that show that recycled materials are going to these REMs.

Oregon already has its own REM standard for its packaging EPR law, while Colorado and California's EPR program plans also have REM requirements. 

CAA’s new draft REM certification aims to streamline requirements across the states, including future states that may decide to pass packaging EPR with REM requirements. CAA is the producer responsibility organization in California, Colorado, Minnesota, Oregon and Washington.

Once the national standard is adopted, end market entities would be able to undergo one audit process instead of multiple audits for each state where it operates, explained Shane Buckingham, CAA’s chief of staff, during a presentation at the Plastics Recycling Conference in March. CAA also plans to roll out a pilot audit to test the standard sometime after the draft public comment period, he said. 

CAA’s draft certification standard includes specific documentation and recordkeeping requirements. It also calls for entities to show up-to-date operating licenses and prove applicable facilities are following labor and safety laws and meeting environmental compliance obligations. 

The draft calls for entities to certify each of their facilities separately, and the certification would last three years. 

The draft also specifies which entities must comply with these REM requirements. CAA’s definition of a “responsible end market” includes “supply chain actors” working downstream of a MRF or collection depot. That could include those that buy, trade, manage or process the materials covered under the packaging EPR law.

Eligible entities could also include secondary processors, transporters, brokers and “other locations where material disposition occurs,” such as landfills and incineration facilities, according to the draft.

Sponsored content

By Polyfuze Graphics Corporation

Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) is reshaping industrial packaging.

Brands are being pushed to improve recyclability, recover materials more efficiently, reduce waste and strengthen supply chain traceability. Manufacturers, pooling companies and retailers are quickly shifting polymer packaging from one time use to long-term assets. 

But there is a problem hiding underneath all of it: Circular systems only work if product identity survives. 

Every reusable polymer asset depends on identification to move through the system correctly. If that identity disappears, the system starts breaking down. 

Not digitally. Physically. 

The weak point in reusable packaging systems

Many companies have invested heavily in automation, visibility platforms, RFID infrastructure and compliance systems. But most still rely on surface-applied labels, adhesives, or printed markings that degrade over time. 

The assumption is simple: The label will survive long enough to support the system. 

However, in environments where modern day polymer assets are paired with old fashioned labeling methods, that assumption often fails. 

HDPE and polypropylene assets move through harsh operating conditions—wash cycles, abrasion, chemicals, UV exposure, repeated handling and outdoor storage. Over time, labels peel, ink wears away and barcodes stop scanning. 

When identity fails, the operational problems begin. Tracking becomes inconsistent. Automation reliability drops. Relabeling labor increases. Recovery and reuse efficiency decline. 

The failure is rarely in the software. The failure is physical. 

The hidden gap between “recyclable” and circular 

Most conventional labels used in industrial packaging today are technically recyclable along with reusable polymer assets. 

But recyclable is not the same as circular. 

Many traditional labeling systems combine films, adhesives, coatings and inks that complicate recovery and recycling processes. In reusable systems, the label often fails long before the asset itself, creating recurring labor, operational interruptions and additional material waste. 

More importantly, when the label degrades or detaches, the identification layer disappears with it weakening the larger tracking and compliance systems connected to the asset. 

This is where EPR changes the conversation. The challenge is no longer whether a package can be recycled once.  

The challenge is whether the entire packaging system—including its identity layer—can remain durable, traceable and materially compatible throughout years of operational use and eventual recovery. 

A different approach: Identity at the material level 

Mono material labeling approaches the problem differently. 

Instead of applying a separate label onto plastic, the identification layer is fused directly into the compatible plastic substrate itself. No adhesive layer. No secondary film. No separation at end-of-life. 

The identity becomes part of the product itself. 

This revelation supports cleaner recycling streams, reduces relabeling labor, improves long-term readability and helps create packaging systems where identity persists alongside the asset lifecycle. 

The bigger revelation 

For years, the packaging industry has focused on making products recyclable. The next challenge is making them permanently identifiable throughout their lifecycle. 

Because modern supply chains are beginning to recognize a foundational reality: Data systems are only as reliable as the physical identity layer supporting them. 

As reusable packaging and EPR systems continue to expand, packaging identity is evolving from a labeling decision into infrastructure. 

Permanent regulations for SB 54, California’s highly anticipated extended producer responsibility and packaging source reduction law, are now in effect.

The rules were approved by the Office of Administrative Law and filed with the secretary of state, and in turn producer responsibility organization Circular Action Alliance published illustrative fees for obligated producers in California.

“We’re taking action to stop producers from using excessive amounts of plastic packaging that pollutes our communities,” CalRecycle Director Zoe Heller said in a statement. “With strong state oversight, producers will be accountable for designing less wasteful packaging and funding systems to make sure their materials are collected, reused, and composted or recycled when consumers are done with them.”

Come 2032, producers must reduce their use of covered materials by 25%; ensure recycling rates of 65%; and ensure 100% recyclability or compostability for all single-use packaging and service ware. There are phased targets along the way.

The May 1 regulatory milestone was years in the making after Gov. Gavin Newsom signed SB 54 into law in 2022. In the time since, CalRecycle and an EPR advisory board have worked through needs assessments, covered material category lists and other key documents. Both CalRecycle and Circular Action Alliance have undergone multiple leadership changes.

Newsom delayed the finalization of SB 54 rules last March, calling on CalRecycle to rework the rules to better account for costs to businesses and consumers. Despite the setback, the SB 54 implementation dates and deadlines for producers remained unchanged.

CalRecycle has set up the Packaging Extended Producer Responsibility System, an online portal for producer registration, data submission and compliance tracking. Producers can either report through CAA — which manages registration, reporting and submissions on producers’ behalf — or self-report through the portal. CalRecycle says it intends to share additional producer guidance resources, including on identifying covered materials and determining producer status.

Outside groups that have been involved since SB 54’s early days in the California legislature reacted to the milestone.

“Getting implementation right is just as important as passing the policy itself,” said Heidi Sanborn, executive director and CEO of the National Stewardship Action Council, in a statement. “This is where the environmental, public health, and economic benefits are either realized or lost and where cost-effective systems must be designed to work in practice.”

CAA’s upcoming program plan, plus additional guidance from CalRecycle, will further illuminate the path forward for SB 54 implementation, said Anja Brandon, director of plastics policy at the Ocean Conservancy.

“At the end of the day, EPR is so iterative, and there’s so many unknown unknowns in this process,” Brandon said. “And so every time we are marching closer to the program rolling out and delivering on its promises is a really exciting step.”

These are some of the next steps:

For years, U.S. extended producer responsibility for packaging fees were theoretical. Now, those costs are very real for businesses selling in Oregon and Colorado, with more reporting deadlines and invoicing on the horizon.

That paradigm shift demands new ways of communicating internally with corporate leadership: The Sustainable Packaging Coalition rolled out a “conversation companion” tool to assist packaging and sustainability leaders as they seek buy-in.

It aims to help walk C-suite leaders through the costs of complying with EPR laws or recycled content mandates, as well as legal and reputational risks related to EPR compliance or greenwashing litigation.

“Today’s convergence of regulation, litigation risk, and product and supply chain transformation will require strategic business transformation and board-level oversight,” SPC outlined in the resource, noting that significant changes and lead times are required. “Leadership needs to understand the EPR fees they’ll pay for their packaging portfolios,” and how they can reduce those fees by moving toward different materials.

Risks that are obvious to packaging professionals may still be unclear to brands’ senior leadership. “Companies that treat packaging solely as a sustainability or compliance issue may find themselves locked out of key markets entirely, if they rely on packaging that is not considered recyclable in that market,” SPC wrote.

This moment is a huge opportunity, explained SPC Director Olga Kachook. “I firmly believe that if you can move packaging to the C-suite for the strategy to happen there, that's going to be the big win,” Kachook said on April 23 at SPC Impact in Nashville, Tennessee. So SPC is trying to equip the packaging community with talking points.

“The idea is to help you talk through when someone says, ‘We don't need to worry about EPR ... there’s all these lawsuits, it's not going to go anywhere,’” she posed. “What do you say when someone says, ‘Consumers don't care about sustainability, they're not willing to pay more.’”

Circular Action Alliance, the producer responsibility organization that’s setting and charging fees in numerous U.S. states, has seen budgeting elevating the packaging EPR issue.

“This has been one of the topics that has probably created the most escalation within our producers,” said CAA’s Geoffrey Inch, senior vice president of producer services, during a panel on the real impacts of packaging EPR laws to date. When it comes to budgeting and paying the bill, “the finance leadership wants to come in and understand this for the first time deeply.” Like SPC, CAA offered to be a resource if companies are struggling with internal messaging.

Inch said CAA is doing what it can to offer predictability where possible and assist businesses, despite companies’ varied calendar year and fiscal year systems. “We try to do our best to give several months notice for budgeting,” he said.

Producers have also started to learn which strategies are most useful in budgeting for EPR fees. Amanda Humes, director of packaging stewardship at Conagra Brands, offered advice from the frontlines.

“Do what you can to get the EPR fees onto the P&Ls for the products that are causing the EPR fees,” she said, versus creating a broader EPR bucket.

“It was a lot of work within our company to figure out how to actually take the individual EPR fees that are assessed on 2023 data, reported in 2024, paid in 2025” and place them accordingly. “But do what you can to do that, because if we are going to have to change our packaging design to lower our fees or to improve other EPR-related attributes, those individual brands and SKUs have to be accountable for those dollars,” she said.

SPC intends to expand the buy-in resource to address other forces shaping the case for sustainable packaging, including consumers, risk of inaction, and packaging as a decarbonization tool.

When the Oregon community of The Dalles rolled out 5,000 new 96-gallon recycling carts at the end of March, it became the first in the state to pay for that improvement using funding directly from packaging producers under Oregon’s EPR for packaging law.

Circular Action Alliance, the state’s producer responsibility organization, projects spending around $123 million for local recycling improvement projects through 2027. The EPR program requires brands and companies that supply packaging and paper products to help fund recycling system improvements. 

The EPR program provided local hauler The Dalles Disposal with $200,000 to buy the new carts, which are about six times larger than the previous curbside recycling bins. Residents needed more space to recycle more materials after the state approved an expanded recyclables list in August 2025, CAA said. 

The community was previously using 14-gallon totes, which “were not keeping up with all the material,” said Alex Bertolucci, communication manager for CAA’s Oregon program, in an interview with Waste Dive.

The funding injection from the EPR program has made a difference so far, said Jim Winterbottom, district manager of The Dalles Disposal, in a statement. “With producer funding through CAA, we can expand recycling options while continuing to deliver high-quality service, making it easier for residents to participate.”

Oregon is the first U.S. state to launch its packaging EPR program, so CAA expects to learn from the rollout of the The Dalles’ cart project to determine how future recycling improvement initiatives will go, Bertolucci said. Later this year, The Dalles is also expected to get a new recycling truck as part of the program. 

CAA’s EPR program plan has mapped out how the PRO expects to disburse recycling infrastructure funding to communities through 2027, prioritizing local governments that “are not, or will not be, able to provide the opportunity to recycle,” without funding for upgrades, according to CAA’s program plan. That plan, published in 2025, estimated spending $81.5 million in producer funding across a range of projects in the state.

Yet the plan also noted that amount could end up being closer to $123 milllion when including contingency funding that assumes the cost of goods and services will increase over time, as well as to account for uncertainty around potential tariff impacts, Bertolucci said. The initial estimates also did not include funding for Tribal projects.

In the months since Oregon’s EPR program started, CAA has disbursed funding to order 14 trucks and about 50,000 carts and containers for communities around the state, Bertolucci said. 

“A lot of the other funding has gone to drop-off recycling centers that were opening around the state,” such as new depots, he added.

Most MRFs in the state are also expected to receive funding for processing upgrades such as optical sorters, he said. 

The state’s EPR program is a shared responsibility model, meaning producer investments cover about a third of recycling costs, Bertolucci said. Meanwhile, rate payers still cover the cost of aspects such as a recycler’s day-to-day operations.

Numerous other Oregon communities are expected to use the funding for new carts, collection trucks or improvements to transfer stations or depots through 2027. CAA will publish a new program plan after that time with a new budget and list of priority projects, he said.

“The Dalles was the first to see that curbside collection expansion, but there’s a lot more to come,” he said. In the future, “there will be other investments that we didn't make during this program plan period that could help modernize the system and improve it over time. So we'll continue to do needs assessments and work with the communities to say, ‘What else can we do, and how else can we make these investments over time?’”

Organizations representing brand owners and packaging companies are calling for greater harmonization across extended producer responsibility laws and legislation, where proliferation has added layers of complexity to compliance.

The spread of packaging EPR in the United States happened slowly — then very quickly.

“It took years to get to the first two states” — Maine and Oregon — but then within a period of a few years, “it went from two states to seven states with enacted laws,” said Danielle Waterfield, Ameripen’s policy director.

There could be benefits to states saying “‘oh, yeah, me too, what they did,’ but they're not doing that,” Waterfield said. “The first few states started very independent with their own ideas. You had Maine with East Coast perspectives, and you had Oregon with very different West Coast perspectives,” reflecting unique economic and cultural factors, and resulting in varied definitions, timelines and frameworks.

Still, there’s much consensus among stakeholders that areas such as producer definitions and covered material categories could be more aligned across states. But what would it mean to harmonize, and what’s possible?

National consistency, regional flexibility

Groups representing producer interests are generally calling for greater harmonization, while maintaining some state-to-state flexibility.

The EPR Leadership Forum, which represents manufacturers and retailers of consumer packaged goods, shared its position on harmonization opportunities this fall. It’s more focused on affecting change in future programs versus working to harmonize existing ones.

When the forum talks about harmonization, “I think what we're really talking about is developing some sort of national consistency, while allowing for regional flexibility” in program plans and “rates and dates,” said Alchemy Graham, policy director at the EPR Leadership Forum. Put another way, it’s important to have “a standardized, consistent framework that we can all work off of and tailor to individual state recycling markets and state infrastructure needs as necessary.” 

First thing’s first, it’s important to harmonize basics like producer and recycling definitions, as well as covered material lists. “I think that once we can get those particular things harmonized, then we'd be in a really good place to move forward with other definitions and other pieces of the framework,” Graham said.

The forum will focus heavily on legislator education in 2026. “We really want to get in the door and have those conversations before the legislation is developed,” Graham said.

The U.S. Plastics Pact also recently released a policy position paper on EPR. “While harmonization of core elements such as definitions, scope, and performance metrics is essential to reduce complexity and administrative burden, flexibility is equally important to accommodate state-specific realities such as infrastructure, data availability, and market conditions,” USPP wrote.

Coordination led by a producer responsibility organization will also be key for multi-state harmonization, in lieu of federal harmonization, USPP wrote.

PRO’s perspective

Creating a stronger foundation across state programs can start with the producer responsibility organization playing a central role in needs assessments, according to Shane Buckingham, chief of staff at Circular Action Alliance, the PRO active in numerous U.S. states. “Our preference is to manage the needs assessment process” as a first step in development, Buckingham said.

The national nature of CAA is designed to be a strength, “to ensure that we can deliver consistent reporting and compliance to producers,” Buckingham said. Like others, he highlighted covered material categories as among the key areas for harmonization, noting different approaches across multiple states.

“So for instance, California, it establishes its own covered material categories which can be updated on an annual basis. Oregon: We established the reporting categories, but then they needed to be approved as part of the program plan. In Colorado, we were able to map those reporting categories. But then in Minnesota and Maryland, we were going to have to go through a state-led process on the development of covered material categories,” Buckingham explained.

In Minnesota and Maryland, for instance, CAA intends to establish its own early reporting process using simplified categories. “However, if a state has a requirement for the regulator to establish the covered material categories, then we will need to use those categories going forward,” Buckingham said.

If a national list were established, then “that can cascade into the appropriate categories by state,” but CAA is already seeing too much variation in this area, “so that that is something that will likely need to be worked out over time.”

Adjustments that require rules changes would be time-intensive. “From our perspective, we're going to do everything we can to ensure the greatest harmonization, to the greatest extent possible, without further regulatory change,” Buckingham said.

With some of the earliest laws, “when these EPR bills were being discussed, people were working with the information they had at the time,” Buckingham said. But there have been some more recent positive signs for harmonization: “We've started to see consistency in the producer definition from Minnesota to Maryland to Washington.”

It’s a normal part of the policy process to “look back and reflect on what works well and what is creating an unnecessary challenge in implementation,” he said.

Different priorities, different programs

Another area that CAA highlighted for harmonization is responsible end markets.

“Having a national standard that we can apply to identify, verify and audit responsible end markets is very important,” Buckingham said, noting CAA was recently working to establish a standard development committee focused on this topic.

The Oregon Department of Environmental Quality hears those calls, said Program Plan Lead Nicole Portley, and sees some potential there for harmonization, including through a single auditing method for the downstream facilities that could be used to meet multiple states’ requirements. Yet DEQ is also cautious.

“I think we're reticent that the call for harmonization on that front be kind of a veiled call for a race to the bottom,” Portley said.

DEQ takes responsible end markets very seriously, in part because they are pivotal in the the origin story of Oregon's law, Portley said.

Oregonians value the state’s leadership in recycling, she said, so the realization in the 2010s that waste collected for recycling was sometimes ending up abroad or being burned “was a big blow to the public trust in the system,” she said. “The law endeavors to repair that trust.”

On responsible end markets, draft rules in California and adopted rules in Oregon have similarities, Portley said, whereas Colorado is more sparse on this issue. “I think they left a lot of the responsible end market implementation to the program plan,” Portley said.

The idea of harmonization becomes trickier when “the extent to which states emphasize that policy lever differ from one another,” she said. Each law is particular, reflecting different state-specific priorities. Portley does still see potential for states to align definitions for producers and covered products. Logistically, though, some types of harmonization might require statutory changes.

Maine opted to pass a law in 2025 clarifying definitions for producers and other aspects of its 2021 packaging EPR law. And Maine’s Department of Environmental Protection “aligned the majority of proposed packaging material types with the producer reporting categories used in the Colorado and Oregon programs,” per a September 2025 update.

In Oregon, state regulators don’t want to decide on harmonization-inspired changes too quickly. “I think we need some time to see how these different approaches in the different states pan out. We need some evidence from implementation,” which most states haven’t yet begun, Portley noted.

“I think we’re glad that there has not been statutory change in the four years of startup that went into the start date, so that we were able to kind of stick with the plan,” Portley said. The next opportunity to revisit would likely be in 2027, Portley said.

Ameripen’s Waterfield also noted that greater data and lessons from CAA will be especially helpful for legislators considering future programs, as lawmakers in the U.S. previously relied on data from programs in Europe and Canada, where infrastructure and other factors were very different.

“The ultimate path to harmonization in the U.S. is federal legislation,” Portley said. “If producers are really wanting something fully harmonized, they may have to go that route, but it's probably not a fast route.” No such bill has been introduced.