Packaging EPR Update: Week of August 30, 2026

Legislative  |  CA

AB 2253, Assembly Member Boerner’s recycled content claims bill, was read a third time and passed by the Senate on August 28, 2026, by 27 ayes to 10 noes, and the Assembly concurred in the Senate amendments on August 30, 2026. The bill was enrolled on September 3, 2026 and has not been signed. The Governor has until September 30, 2026 to act, and a bill he does not return by then becomes law without his signature. (Corrected October 12, 2026.)

The operative text is the August 21, 2026 Senate floor amendment. It amends, repeals, and adds Section 42357.6 of the Public Resources Code. A recycled content claim must be based on actual recycled content determined using any of five chain of custody models named in the bill: identity-preserved, segregated, controlled blending, and rolling average percentage as described in ISO 22095:2020(E), or proportional attribution as defined in ISO 22095-2:2026. Two limits ride on the last of these: no recycling credits may be provided to any form of fuel use or fuel production, and there may be no credit transfers between unrelated processes. The claim may not exceed the third-party certified recycled content introduced into the manufacturer’s or supplier’s overall supply stream for that product line, and it must conform to the FTC Green Guides at 16 C.F.R. Part 260 as they read on January 1, 2026. The August 21 amendment also broadened the deemed-compliance route, which had reached only plastic beverage containers subject to Section 14549.3 and now reaches any product meeting those reporting requirements.

What this means for you: nothing today, and nothing for three years. The substantive duties are operative January 1, 2030. If you make a voluntary recycled content claim on a label in California, this is the rule you will eventually be substantiating it against, and the practical answer is that credit-based accounting is permitted under a named ISO method rather than banned. Watch for the Governor’s signature or veto. Source: California Legislature, AB 2253 bill history (accessed August 30, 2026).

Update, September 24, 2026: the Governor need not act. The bill was presented to him September 10, 2026, and a bill he does not return by September 30, 2026 becomes a statute without his signature (Cal. Const. art. IV, sec. 10(b)(2)).

Update, September 30, 2026: Governor Newsom vetoed AB 2253 on September 27, 2026, so the bill does not become law. Source: Office of the Governor of California, legislative update (September 27, 2026).

(Corrected October 7, 2026: the August 21 text caps the claim at the third-party certified recycled content introduced into the manufacturer’s or supplier’s overall supply stream for that product line, not the producer’s.)

Update  |  RI

Rhode Island’s Statewide Implementation Analysis, required by R.I. Gen. Laws ch. 23-19.19 and enacted by H6207 of the 2025 session, is being carried out by RRS (Resource Recycling Systems) for RIDEM and the Rhode Island Resource Recovery Corporation, with Resa Dimino as project director. The published project timeline is a draft report to RIDEM on September 1, 2026, a final report on November 1, 2026, and RIDEM transmitting it to the Governor on December 1, 2026.

RRS is modeling five program plans: an “As Is” program, EPR stand alone, a deposit return system stand alone, the proposed legislation (H6207 and S0996), and one further option RRS will suggest after the needs assessment. Each is assessed on key elements, system needs, a SWOT analysis, an implementation schedule, impact analysis, and cost benefit analysis. The Rhode Island Redemption and Recycling Advisory Council is seated and has met twice, on June 9 and July 14, 2026, with agendas, presentations, and minutes posted; public input workshops were held July 21 and public comment remains open through SmartComment.

What this means for you: nothing to comply with. Rhode Island has no EPR program, no producer registration, and no fees, and all four packaging bills introduced there in 2026 died. Two things are worth knowing anyway. The date to watch is September 1, not December 1: December is when the finished report reaches the Governor, September is when the analysis first exists. And a stand-alone packaging EPR program is being costed on its own merits rather than only as a component of a bottle bill, which is how the last several states arrived at an EPR law. Source: RIDEM, Statewide Implementation Analysis and the RRS Advisory Council Meeting #1 deck (June 9, 2026), both accessed August 30, 2026. Update, October 4, 2026: RIDEM will take public comment on the draft analysis from October 15 to November 16, 2026 (4 p.m.) and hold a public hearing on November 4, 2026 at 1 p.m., at its Providence headquarters and online, so the November 1 final report date in the August timeline no longer holds; the December 1, 2026 statutory deadline stands (RIDEM study page).

Site Update

Two new pages, both written because a question kept arriving that the site answered only in pieces. B2B Packaging and EPR: Who Is the Producer? separates the two questions that get asked as one: whether a company that sells empty packaging to a filler is a producer (generally not, and Maryland says so in its regulation), and how each state treats packaging that only ever goes to business customers, which is not the flat exclusion most summaries describe. Reporting EPR Volumes You Cannot Directly Measure covers what to do when you sell through distributors and cannot see state-level sales: the three allocation methods in order of defensibility, the states whose rules expressly permit estimation and their conditions, and the methodology document that makes an estimate hold up. (Corrected October 12, 2026.)

Writing them forced three corrections elsewhere. The producer page now says plainly that the familiar five-tier cascade is the Washington, Maryland, Minnesota, and Maine shape only, that Oregon and the Colorado statute have no brand-owner tier, although Colorado’s rule puts a brand owner that directs or performs the manufacturing first, and that California’s first tier reaches a manufacturer that owns or is the licensee of the brand. (Corrected October 12, 2026.) The state cards for Washington, Maryland, Maine, and Minnesota now quote how each instrument actually handles B2B packaging rather than paraphrasing it. And producer responsibility can be contractually assigned in four states, not one.

Update, September 24, 2026: this entry said Colorado has no brand-owner tier. That is true of the statute, C.R.S. 25-17-703(30)(a), which runs the manufacturer (own brand or unbranded), then the licensee, then the importer. CDPHE’s rule sets a four-step order of obligation that puts first the brand owner directing or performing the manufacturing of the packaging, then the brand or trademark licensee directing it, then the manufacturer where no brand is identified, then the importer (6 CCR 1007-2 Part 1, s18.2.2(A)).