Packaging EPR Update: Week of August 23, 2026

Delay  |  ME

Maine DEP’s Stewardship Organization solicitation, RFP-202605094, was published on June 15, 2026 and closed on August 18, 2026 at 4:00 p.m. with zero proposals submitted. DEP announced this on August 20 and said it “is assessing all options at this time; further information will be forthcoming in a future newsletter.” The Circular Action Alliance, which was the only expected bidder and which holds the equivalent role in California, Colorado, Maryland, Minnesota, Oregon and Washington, publicly declined to bid on August 19. CAA said the RFP’s scope did not align with its operational practices, systems and data stewardship standards, and that it had no visibility into the full requirements until the RFP issued. It left open the possibility of bidding on a future solicitation. The program stays at step 4 of DEP’s nine-step process, where it has sat since December 2024.

What this means for you: nothing changes today, and that is the whole point. Maine producers still have no registration, no reporting and no fee obligation, because the registration clock only starts within 90 days of a Stewardship Organization making a registration mechanism available, and there is no Stewardship Organization. Maine is now the only state with an enacted packaging EPR law and no organization in place. If you had Maine startup fees in a late 2026 budget, take them out: DEP has said it intends to reassess the anticipated dates for producer start-up registration and invoicing, so the previous “late 2026” expectation no longer rests on anything. Alternative Collection Program applications are also frozen, since DEP only begins accepting them the day it and a Stewardship Organization enter into a contract. Source: Maine DEP, Stewardship Organization RFP-202605094 Announcement (August 20, 2026, read in full); CAA’s decision reported by Resource Recycling (August 19, 2026).

Litigation  |  CA

On August 20, 2026 the plaintiffs in the multi-state challenge to SB 54 filed a motion for a preliminary injunction and an amended complaint, asking the court to stop CalRecycle and the Circular Action Alliance from enforcing SB 54 while the case proceeds. The amended complaint adds a due process vagueness count built directly on the SB 343 ruling: it argues that SB 54’s 2032 recyclability mandate leans on the same recyclability standard that a federal court preliminarily enjoined as unconstitutionally vague on July 14, 2026 in California League of Food Producers v. Bonta. The other counts pleaded are dormant Commerce Clause, Import-Export Clause, First Amendment compelled association with and funding of CAA’s speech, extraterritorial regulation, and unconstitutional delegation of fee-setting to a private organization with a financial interest.

What this means for you: nothing changes today. No court has granted anything. Registration, reporting and the 2026 early fee schedule all remain in force, and a motion is not an order. What makes this one worth watching is that it is the first attempt to halt SB 54 as a whole rather than one piece of it, and it is the first time the two California cases have been formally linked. One thing we cannot yet tell you: whether the requested injunction would reach every producer or only NAW’s members. That distinction decided who was covered in Oregon and it is the question to ask when a ruling comes. Evidence label: signaled. The docket is reported sealed and we were not able to read the filing itself, so this rests on the parties’ own announcement and trade coverage rather than the court record. Source: NAW (August 20, 2026) and Packaging Dive (August 21, 2026).

Regulatory  |  WA

This closes out what we reported last week, when the votes had been taken but the outcomes were not yet public. The Recycling Reform Act Advisory Council posted its meeting notes and both vote records on August 20, 2026.

Vote 1, on the Statewide Lists Subcommittee’s four recommendations, passed unanimously among voting members. The four: align the residential recycling collection list with the public place collection list; include a broader range of materials than is commonly recycled today, so the needs assessment can evaluate feasibility and cost; revisit and refine the preliminary lists once the needs assessment exists, specifically on glass collection method, aseptic and gable top carton sortation, PET thermoforms, fiber food service packaging and its effect on responsible end markets for mixed paper bales, and aerosols for residential collection; and align category names, descriptions and scope with industry standards and other EPR states.

Vote 2, expanding the Alternative Collection List to version 2, passed by majority with one no. Danielle Waterfield of AMERIPEN voted against and gave her reason on the record: “I am concerned with shredded paper being included without further evaluation as discussed on today’s call.” Amanda Dalton of the Northwest Grocery Retail Association was absent for both votes. Version 2 narrows version 1. Dropped: small format paper packaging, small format paper products, #6 EPS food packaging and food service, #2/#4/#5 plastic products, and other and composite metal packaging. Black pigmented rigid plastic was narrowed from #1 through #7 down to #1, #2 and #5, with black plastic nursery pots as an alternative.

What this means for you: nothing changes today, but the alternative collection list is where a material lands when it is collected outside normal residential service, and that placement feeds recyclability determinations and therefore fees later. If you sell in expanded polystyrene food service, small format paper, or black rigid plastic in Washington, your material’s position moved this month. Two clarifications from the same notes worth knowing: Ecology confirmed there is no formal numerical weighting across the material evaluation criteria, and the absence of a responsible end market can outweigh otherwise favorable scores; and residential recycling is not curbside only, since jurisdiction-provided drop-off counts. Source: RRA Advisory Council, August 13, 2026 meeting notes and both vote records (published August 20, 2026, read August 23, 2026).

Legislative  |  CA

AB 2253 came out of Senate Appropriations 5-2 on August 13, 2026, was read a second time and ordered to third reading on August 17, then on August 21 was read a third time, amended on the floor, and ordered back to second reading. It sits on the Senate second reading file for August 24. There has been no Senate floor vote. With the legislature adjourning around August 31 and a Senate-amended bill still needing Assembly concurrence, the remaining path is short.

The August 21 version continues not to ban credit-based mass balance; the July 2, 2026 amendment removed that, as we reported on August 16. What the current text does: expands PRC 42357.6 from plastic food container products to all products making recycled content claims; pins the FTC Green Guides reference to those guides as they read on January 1, 2026; requires written documentation that the recycled content claimed does not exceed the amount of third-party certified recycled content introduced into the manufacturer’s or supplier’s overall supply stream for that product line; and requires those records to be furnished to the Attorney General on request for non-plastic-food-container products, with confidential and trade secret information staying confidential. Operative January 1, 2030.

What this means for you: nothing changes today. If you make a recycled content claim in California, the thing to build toward is certified supply-stream documentation you can hand to the Attorney General, not a mass balance prohibition. One caution: at least one syndicated news story published on August 21 still describes AB 2253 as banning certain accounting methods used to establish recycled content. That describes the introduced bill, not the current one, and it is wrong. Source: California Legislative Information, AB 2253 bill history (read August 23, 2026).

Comment Period  |  WA, OR

Two live consultation tracks moved on the same day, August 19, 2026, and both are still open.

Washington. Ecology’s rulemaking advisory committee for chapter 173-950 WAC met for the second time and posted new draft rule language the same day, superseding the May 27 draft that governed the first comment period. The current comment window runs August 5 to September 2, 2026. Ecology’s published timeline now shows the CR-102 proposal estimated October 2027, hearings December 2027, adoption April 2028 and the rule effective around May 2028. The rule’s scope is narrow: when a new program plan must be submitted, and what the producer responsibility organization pays to cover Ecology’s costs.

Oregon. The Circular Action Alliance held the second of three consultation sessions feeding its 2028 to 2032 Oregon program plan, this one on education, outreach and equity. The first, on eco-modulation and reducing environmental impact, was held August 12 and has passed. The third, on materials, the Uniform Statewide Collection List and RecycleOn centers, is September 2, 2026 at 11:00 a.m. PT.

What this means for you: if you commented on Washington’s collection lists and stopped there, you have until September 2 to comment on the rule text that governs how those lists get used, and you should read the August 19 draft rather than the May one. On the Oregon side, this is the first place the next Oregon plan cycle is being shaped, and Oregon’s current cycle is bonus-only with no maluses in force. If maluses arrive in Oregon, the 2028 to 2032 plan is where they will come from, and the eco-modulation session is already behind you. Sources: Washington Ecology, chapter 173-950 WAC rulemaking (read August 23, 2026) and CAA Oregon consultation series.

Deadline  |  WA

Washington Ecology’s needs assessments page now carries one clean key dates table: draft preliminary needs assessment out for public comment in September 2026; final preliminary needs assessment December 31, 2026; draft full needs assessment out for public comment in September 2027; final full needs assessment December 31, 2027. The August 13 Advisory Council notes corroborate it, recording a September 29 draft going to Ecology and the council, and an October 8 council meeting in Spokane focused on the preliminary needs assessment.

This resolves something we have deliberately not published until now. Three separate Ecology surfaces used to give different timing for the needs assessments, so this site published no single date rather than pick one. Ecology has now put them in one table and the council notes agree with it, so the dates above are what we will carry.

What this means for you: a date you can actually plan around. The preliminary needs assessment is the document that turns Washington’s collection lists into a cost estimate, and the cost estimate is what eventually becomes your fee. The September 2026 comment window is the first chance to respond to it. Note that one date on Ecology’s own pages is still unreconciled: the Recycling Reform Act landing page says “by 2027” for publishing the statewide collection lists, while the statutory date for developing initial lists is October 1, 2026. Source: Washington Department of Ecology, Recycling Reform Act needs assessments (read August 23, 2026).