Whether you’re an old reader or a new one, welcome to Policy Pickup, and thank you for joining me here!
Let’s start with a rundown of what this newsletter will be. There will be free weekly emails that will come out (after this first one) on Thursdays. That will have some of the content you know and love – updates on bills that have passed, stalled and failed; interesting tidbits from extended producer responsibility advisory board and regulatory meetings; and any other recycling policy content that crosses my desk.
I’ll also still be writing in-depth stories, several a month, but these will now be paywalled. If you choose to support my work with a paid subscription, you can look forward to two or three stories a month in your inbox on Wednesdays.
Eventually, I also hope to bring paid subscribers a bill-tracking resource, but that is still in beta testing.
Before we get on to the policy updates for this week, I’ll introduce myself for the new folks. I have more than a decade of newswriting experience and have been covering the recycling industry for a smidge more than three years. While I’ve been a true jack-of-all-subjects, I found a particular interest in writing about recycling policy, and here we are.
And now, policy:
Bill Updates
In Massachusetts, several recycling bills have been combined into one large bill, S 2541. Those include a bag ban (S 590 and S 654), a ban on several single-use plastic items (S 630 and S 554), a ban on plastic straws (S 543), a ban on single-use plastic hotel toiletries (S 609) and a bill that would alter the definition of recyclable beverage containers in the state’s existing deposit refund system (S 643).
In Oregon, HB 3940 was altered after industry pressure to remove the requirement that the unclaimed deposits from the beverage container deposit refund system (DRS) go toward funding wildfire response. State producer responsibility organization (PRO) Oregon Beverage Recycling Cooperative encouraged BottleDrop users to sign petitions and contact representatives for the change.
In Texas, Gov. Greg Abbott signed consumer electronics right-to-repair bill HB 2963 into law on June 20. The move, a first for a Republican-majority state government, drew praise from the repair advocacy community.
In Rhode Island, a combined DRS and packaging extended producer responsibility (EPR) bill was amended to instead require a statewide recycling needs assessment and form a recycling advisory council. Under H 6207, a report on existing state infrastructure and recommendations for potential DRS or EPR bills would be due by Dec. 1, 2026.
Rulemaking News
In California, the public had another chance to comment on changes to the proposed SB 54 regulations, the state’s EPR for packaging law. At the June 23 hearing, Susan Keefe, advocacy group Beyond Plastics' Southern California Director, asked why the covered material categories (CMC) were so numerous.
Karen Kayfetz, California Department of Resources Recycling and Recovery (CalRecycle) branch chief for the product stewardship branch, said the list is a “push and pull” of the need for specificity and trying to keep everything streamlined. She added that the original list had 130 categories, but it’s now down to 95. “This is just one piece of the toolbox,” she said.
Program Updates
Oregon’s EPR program, formed by the Recycling Modernization Act, officially rolled out today, July 1. It’s also the deadline for end markets that handle material from the state to self-attest as meeting Oregon’s “responsible” standard. There is a grace period until Jan. 1 where processors can submit a form proving that “REM unavailability results from causes outside its control.” If they do, the state will not consider the processor in violation of its permit or issue enforcement orders.
July 1 is also the deadline in Minnesota for producers obligated under the state’s EPR law to register with PRO Circular Action Alliance and the effective date in Colorado after which producers that have not registered with CAA cannot sell products that use covered materials in the state.
In Maine EPR news, Gov. Janet Mills signed LD 1423 into law June 20, which alters the state’s program to align the producer definition with some of the newer state definitions. Maine was one of the first U.S. states to pass packaging EPR in 2021.
In addition, LD 1423 allows producers to count post-industrial recycled content toward recycled content targets, re-defines “consumer” to residential settings and areas served by municipal collection programs, and ensures that packages that cannot use recycled material under federal law are exempt from penalty fees.
The law also changes the UPC code reporting mandate, changing it to a simpler brand or producer reporting system.
Hard-to-Categorize News
In Oregon, the Oregon Recycling System Advisory Council is seeking to fill three vacancies – a producer representative, a local government representative and a community-based organization representative. Terms are three years.
In California, CalRecycle released the preliminary results of a material characterization study focused on materials covered by the EPR law that end up in landfills. “What's in California Landfills: Measuring Single-Use Packaging and Plastic Food Service Ware Disposed (2025),” will be updated in August after more analysis, the agency noted.
In Canada, the federal government launched a reporting platform for its Federal Plastics Registry. The first reporting deadline is Sept. 29, and producers of plastic products, resin manufacturers and service providers for the management of plastics must report the quantity and types of plastic they manufacture, import and place on the market annually, as well as the quantity of plastic collected and diverted, composted, incinerated or landfilled. The data collection is to better inform Canada’s EPR laws.
Looking forward
Later this month, I’ll break down the nearly 300 bills I tracked this year, laying out what passed, what failed, and what those involved think will emerge as trends in 2026. Stay tuned for that story, and I’ll be back in your inbox next week with more policy news in brief!
-Marissa Heffernan