Seven US states now make brands report, and pay for, the packaging they ship into the state. Check yours in two minutes: exemptions, what to file, deadlines and penalties, with links to the regulators' own pages.
Under extended producer responsibility (EPR), the company that puts packaging into a state pays for recycling it. In most states that's the brand owner: the company whose name is on the product, even when a co-packer makes it. Producers register with the state's producer responsibility organization (the Circular Action Alliance, or CAA, in six states). Each year they report the pounds of packaging they supplied into the state, by material category, and pay fees based on those pounds.
The report is the hard part. Regulators want weights for every packaging component of every product (bottle, cap, label, box, tape, fill), multiplied by units sold into each state, and mapped to dozens of material categories. They also want a written methodology. Law firm Holland & Knight's review of the first 2026 reporting round said "a single-line methodology is not acceptable" and that producers should "expect stricter scrutiny going forward."
This checker summarizes public rules as of October 3, 2026, from the statutes, regulations, regulator guidance and Circular Action Alliance documents linked in each result. It isn't legal advice, and some points are still unsettled: rulemaking is ongoing and lawsuits are pending in Oregon, Colorado and California. Confirm anything you rely on with the regulator or your counsel.