2025 Bill Breakdown

Looking at what failed, what passed and what happened

It’s July, and that means most legislative sessions are finished for the year — with a few exceptions — and that it’s time to break down what happened by the numbers.

This legislative session, I tracked 345 bills, and once again, extended producer responsibility (EPR) bills for various materials were one of the most popular, with 106 bills introduced, followed by bans, which saw 97 bills introduced.

Third place in terms of sheer number of bills introduced went to bills concerning deposit refund systems (DRS), with 38 bills. Bills that would give consumers the right to repair electronics trailed close behind at 34 bills.

Past that, there were 15 study bills introduced and six bills concerning chemical recycling that I tracked. Bill categories I tracked with single digits of introduced bills were markets, labeling, source reduction, microplastics, access, tax credits, permits, post-consumer resin mandates and repeals of previously passed recycling legislation.