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Data collected by the Product Stewardship Institute shows 150 active extended producer responsibility (EPR) laws spread across the United States and the District of Columbia in 21 different categories, including paper and plastic packaging, electronics, batteries, paint, mattresses and more.

With so many different programs comes a high degree of variation by state and a lot of gray area for stakeholders to consider when attempting to comply.

For packaging, seven states have passed EPR legislation since 2021, and two currently are active in Oregon and Colorado. California’s program, established under Senate Bill 54, is scheduled to take effect Jan. 1, 2027, and laws in Maine, Maryland, Minnesota and Washington still are in development.

Despite the differences in each packaging EPR law, a common topic of concern is where material will go once it’s been collected and sorted. To that end, the Circular Action Alliance (CAA), a nonprofit serving as the chosen producer responsibility organization (PRO) in six of the seven states, has been working with stakeholders to determine responsible end markets, or REMs, for material.

During a panel at the 2026 Paper & Plastic Recycling Conference Oct. 28 in Chicago hosted by the Recycling Today Media Group, the session Responsible End Markets: Finding Harmony in EPR discussed what a REM is and how the PRO is seeking to harmonize how it recognizes them across each state.

Defining a REM

A PRO must have a process to verify that end markets are actually REMs and support service providers in sending materials to those REMs, according to Ross Bergman, a panelist and CAA’s senior manager of responsible end markets.

But what is a REM? Bergman said that could include entities that process plastic, paper, glass and metal, or even brokers or secondary processors and metal shredders. He noted that disposal sites such as landfills using material for alternative daily cover do not count under CAA’s REM definition.

To help identify REMs and streamline the process of registering them, CAA has been developing a REM Standard to provide a consistent framework for verifying how recyclable materials are managed downstream of collection and sorting while maintaining appropriate protections for confidential business information.

Currently, Bergman says CAA is working with material recovery facilities, brokers and industry associations to gain access to data on where materials are going.

“We want to figure out who these end markets are,” Bergman said. “Some states are more prescriptive. Oregon mandates that MRFs disclose where they send material to. California has no mandate like that. CAA has to go around the world and verify that end markets are responsible. [To get that information], we have to get creative.”

Another way for potential REMs to identify themselves is through self-attestation, in which they sign a form and identify that they’re legally compliant. They must provide CAA with a set of permits and licenses showing how they’re being responsible. Bergman said third-party certification could be ready in 2027 that will harmonize the process so end markets only have to go through one audit that will be valid in all EPR states.

Bergman noted that Oregon already has begun using third-party REM audits, though CAA is looking for more engagement so it can prepare stakeholders for what the program will look like in the future. In Colorado and California, MRFs will be required to share a list of end markets they sell material to.

California’s program is set to launch Jan. 1, 2027, and CAA’s program plan could be approved by Dec. 28 of this year.

“We have to establish that list of end markets so we can provide feedback to MRFs and local jurisdictions what’s available for them,” Bergman said. “We won’t identify every REM by Jan. 1. It’s the beginning of a long road here.”

He said that CAA wants to “clear the road so we can work with industry” ahead of California’s program launch, but it’s “going to take money to make data move.”

“We want to support disclosure,” he said. “We want to develop pathways where we can collaborate. The more we can show the states this is working, the fewer hurdles we have.”

Investing in the process

International Paper Inc. (IP) is a REM making significant investments in its recycling capacity.

Josh Starrett, the Memphis, Tennessee-based company’s strategy lead, noted the company operates 14 recycling facilities and handles around 7 million tons of recovered fiber per year.

In October, Starrett said IP’s Cedar Rapids, Iowa, mill voluntarily went through a REM audit measured to CAA’s standard.

“What I think we learned there is it gave us an independent auditor,” Starrett said. “IP people didn’t do it. Given that this is a relatively new space, we gave that auditor the ability to audit to the PRO’s California standard.”

Starrett added that while IP competes heavily for yields, based on the company’s permits and the environmental regulations and local rules its mills operate under, once standardized REM verification is up and running, desktop audits could become possible.

More importantly, Starrett said, when he and his company think about EPR, the goal is investing in access for people to recycle.

“The more we can invest in giving people access to recycling versus spending money to audit things where people are operating under permit, we think money would be spent wisely in the access space.”

Potential difficulties

For companies such as Sweden-based CellMark that broker recycled-content paper and packaging globally, EPR legislation in the U.S. will have broad impacts.

“[EPR laws] will affect our suppliers, they’ll affect us, they’ll affect our customers and our facilities,” said James Derrico, vice president of business development for the company. “Since we like to broker material, will this make prices go up or down? What will happen?”

Derrico pointed out that companies tasked with complying with the laws should be up to speed on the rules, including exemptions for products that already meet recycling rate thresholds. Also, for states such as California and Colorado that require MRFs to disclose where they sell their material for REM verification, he said the process could be challenging.

“If you’re on the MRF level and need to know where your materials are going, you likely don’t know,” he said. “A lot of it is tracking down those end markets.”

As a broker, Derrico said a company like CellMark will work to track down end markets, but there still could be difficulties accounting for where exactly material goes.

“I ship a lot of material to Europe, where we own our own warehousing, but not mills,” he said. “We may take six bales from one container, eight from another, ship them to a mill, but I don’t know which mill they’re going to before they get there. Your Europe material might move with my Brazil material, and now you have a whole omelet we have to uncrack. Companies want to know where material’s going, but we don’t always know 100 percent.”

Derrico worried about the transparency of where material is coming from and where it’s going, and how entities in EPR states will collect REM data.

“For recycling facilities, the biggest challenge, depending on the state, is that you’ll need to know more of where your material’s going,” he said. “That means asking more questions and hounding customers to give you that information.”

The panel discussed the potential challenges of tracking the destination of material to end markets around the world, and Bergman noted that legal compliance can have a different meaning in Oregon than it does in South America. He said CAA is working on standardizing data collection with regulators.

“We had to go to the international level to define things like, ‘what do you determine is child labor, or chemicals of concern,’” he said. “In one jurisdiction it means one thing, and in another jurisdiction, it means something else. Are there international frameworks we can look at? This is compliance driven and we’re [attempting to] establish a baseline [for REM verification]. Everyone involved wants to see the best possible result out of this.”

Source

- Recycling Today (2026-11-03) - Original article: PPRC 2026: Defining end markets as EPR grows - https://www.recyclingtoday.com/paper-and-plastics-recycling-conference-2026-defining-end-markets-as-epr-grows