Michael Wasserman, a Senior Consultant in our New York office, explains what is involved with delivering a needs assessments for packaging under EPR, what they can achieve, and how they can support state governments in managing packaging waste.
The rise of EPR for packaging in the US
Across the US, state governments are exploring and implementing extended producer responsibility (EPR) to cover the costs of recycling packaging waste and integrate circular economy principles into materials management.
With packaging ubiquitous and increasingly complex, its production and consumption can impose significant management costs at the post-consumption (waste) stage. By placing the financial responsibility for this squarely on producers, EPR schemes can not only fund waste management but also encourage producers to design packaging with less environmental impacts and lower end-of-life management costs.
Different states are approaching EPR for packaging by various routes. Some, like Hawaii, Maryland, Rhode Island, and Illinois, have begun by passing legislation to set in motion the exploration and analysis of how EPR could benefit the state – for example, by improving recycling rates. These bills typically allocate funds for a needs assessment that could eventually underpin legislation on EPR for packaging, as has happened in Maryland. This approach equips states with detailed analysis that helps them measure appetite for setting targets and understand the potential impact of including different covered materials or entities in the legislation.
Other states, such as Colorado and California, have passed legislation first to adopt EPR for packaging and have commissioned needs assessments to support its design and implementation. Colorado’s needs assessment estimated what recycling rates could be achieved under EPR and these estimates were integrated into the PRO’s program plan as their recycling targets. California included recycling rate requirements for plastic covered materials in the legislation, so the needs assessment set out what improvements would be needed in the recycling system, when and what investment from both opex and capex perspective would be.
Assessing the system’s needs: a first step
Regardless of what approach US states take, they typically want to understand how packaging waste is currently managed, where gaps exist across the recycling value chain, and where opportunities exist to improve recycling and collection rates. In the current context of volatile end markets for recyclables and regional infrastructure disparities, these assessments provide critical information for decision making. Through data gathering and analysis, needs assessments create a detailed understanding of current materials management, which is essential for planning how to increase recycling rates.
Needs assessments generate regionally nuanced, data-informed analysis that inform the design and implementation of EPR schemes and support investments. This knowledge base enables the rigorous evaluation of an existing system and the identification of measures and investments to improve it –for example, through waste reduction, reuse, composting, and the use of recycled content. Modelling different scenarios, along with levers to increase capture and recycling rates for different materials, provides PROs and governments with a menu of bespoke options.
States are also recognizing the wins that EPR can achieve for state economies, environments, and equity, such as:
- source reduction (minimizing how much material enters the waste stream).
- providing producers with material management and recycled content to meet their goals.
- reducing pollution and greenhouse gas emissions.
- creating new jobs and infrastructure for waste collection and management.
- supporting local responsible end markets.
- providing equitable services to a higher proportion of state residents.
Needs assessments can provide powerful bipartisan levers for developing and implementing policies to deliver these outcomes.
What does a needs assessment involve?
Each US state differs in terms of its geography, demographics, and recycling goals for various materials.
The first step involves establishing the current state of material management by gathering data on the quantities of packaging sold and generated, and on how packaging waste is collected, transferred, processed, and recycled by municipalities, counties, haulers, and recycling and composting facilities. This data is used to model material flows and build a detailed understanding of how materials are managed in the state and what that management costs. Next, and in collaboration with local stakeholders, the needs assessment identifies potential improvements to the system and determines their impact on recycling rates and their relative cost.
Developing a needs assessment to inform the EPR bill
In Maryland, an exploratory needs assessment drew together baseline data on waste characterization, demographics, worker conditions, environmental justice, and system costs. This was used to model the performance and costs of the state’s current recycling system, including collection and processing costs. The study found that a well-designed EPR system could increase the state’s recycling rate for paper and packaging products from 34% to 50% and capture an extra $53 million of material value, while costs would be around 20% above the current baseline. The results underpinned recommendations by advisory groups to the state legislature for the new EPR bill, SB 901, which was signed into law in May 2025.
Mandating that the PRO completes a needs assessment
In Colorado, under the state’s Colorado’s Producer Responsibility Program, the Producer Responsibility Organization (PRO) was required to conduct a needs assessment to support the program plan for EPR. This involved evaluating existing recycling services and infrastructure for managing packaging and paper products to identify gaps in both. The process included identifying opportunities to expand recycling access across the state and improve recycling and collection rates. This needs assessment helped the PRO identify where infrastructure investment and new services might be needed across municipalities and counties.
The needs assessment for Colorado demonstrated the potential to more than double the recycling rate for packaging and paper products, and it outlined three future recycling service scenarios for 2030 and 2035, including operating and capital costs for each. In 2024, the state legislature approved a revised version of the medium-ambition scenario, using figures modelled in the needs assessment to set recycling targets, enabling implementation of Colorado’s EPR law.
The importance of stakeholder engagement
Engaging stakeholders and experts across the packaging life cycle (for example, through webinars, surveys, and interviews) is vital to deliver an effective needs assessment for any state. Feedback from stakeholders – such as municipalities, haulers, and owners of composting and material recovery facilities – can help to shape the needs assessment process and its outputs as well as gauge support for EPR.
Eunomia, working with various project partners and on behalf of state governments and the US producer responsibility organization (PRO) Circular Action Alliance, has so far conducted EPR packaging needs assessments for six US states. If you’d like to find out more about our work in this area, please contact Michael Wasserman in Eunomia’s New York office.