Minnesota's Pollution Control Agency has opened a 400-plus-page needs assessment to public comment, with the deadline set for Nov. 13. The draft, prepared by consultancy Eunomia, underpins the state's extended producer responsibility law for packaging and includes a recommendation that Minnesota adopt the "responsible end markets" standard the Circular Action Alliance is now drafting.

That recommendation carries weight. The REM concept sits at the centre of modern packaging EPR. It obliges recyclers, brokers and downstream processors to handle material in ways that minimise environmental and public-health risk — a reaction, the report notes, to the illegal dumping that followed China's 2017 import ban and similar restrictions elsewhere.

Six of the seven U.S. states with packaging EPR laws carry some form of REM requirement. Oregon and California each maintain their own variant. CAA argues the patchwork risks multiplying compliance costs for brokers and mills that operate across multiple jurisdictions. Its national draft proposes a unified verification process — one audit every few years, applied across states, rather than separate filings in each one.

Eunomia endorses the alignment. Aligning "could help avoid extra compliance costs and establish a consistent minimum standard for all facilities accepting covered materials, regardless of their location," the assessment states.

Why Minnesota departs from the producer-led model

Most state EPR programmes assign verification to the producer responsibility organisation — in Minnesota, CAA itself. Minnesota's statute departs from that pattern. It requires the state to appoint an independent third-party certifier instead. Eunomia states the CAA draft's due-diligence and documentation provisions could still anchor that state-run verification process, even with the different governance structure.

CAA has not finalised the national standard. The organisation is working with SCS Standards and Assurance Systems and an REM standard-development committee that includes trade groups, recyclers, state agencies and MPCA staff.

What end markets does the state actually have?

The assessment describes fibre markets as "well established." It names Liberty Paper and Smurfit Westrock as the two principal in-state destinations for recovered paper, with additional volume moving to mills in neighbouring states and Canadian provinces. Eunomia could not determine whether those buyers could absorb additional tonnage once the programme ramps up — a notable gap, given that producers will need certified offtake for material once the law is in force.

Plastics present a thinner picture. Choice Plastics in Hennepin County is the sole in-state end market identified for certain EPR-covered resins. Additional post-consumer capacity exists nationally for PET, HDPE and polypropylene, Eunomia notes, but that capacity does not necessarily translate into outlets for Minnesota-generated residential packaging.

"Incorporating these requirements could help ensure that recycling outcomes are assessed not only on whether materials are recycled, but also on how they are managed throughout the recycling process," the report states.

Takeaway: paper end markets run deep and depend on a handful of in-state mills; plastic outlets stay thin and rely on buyers beyond the state border.

What happens next?

The needs assessment covers collection systems, recycling infrastructure and data management alongside end markets. During the 2027-2028 window, MPCA expects to publish a statewide materials list and CAA will submit its first stewardship plan. Those two documents will set the actual operating targets — tonnage thresholds, recycling rates, covered materials — that producers must meet.

The next milestone is Nov. 13.