Minnesota sets a 48% recycling baseline in its packaging EPR needs assessment. Comments close 13 November

How Minnesota's needs assessment feeds producer fees

The Packaging Waste and Cost Reduction Act, Minnesota Statutes sections 115A.144 to 115A.1463 and tracked as PR-US-006, makes producers of packaging and paper products fund most of the cost of reuse, recycling and composting services through one producer responsibility organisation (PRO). Circular Action Alliance (CAA) is that PRO. MPCA oversees the programme and approves the plan that sets out how CAA will spend producers’ money.

Section 115A.1450 required a preliminary assessment by 31 December 2025 and the first full needs assessment by 31 December 2026, then every five years⁶. A third party that is not a producer, a PRO or a board member must carry it out. The statute lists at least 18 items it must cover, from recycling rates by material to the investments needed, reimbursement methodology and market capacity. Service providers must hand over the data the commissioner asks for, and the commissioner must respond in writing to comments from the board and the PRO.

Two provisions give the document its weight. Subdivision 5 makes the needs assessment the baseline for deciding whether a statewide requirement or performance target has been achieved. And section 115A.1455 ties reimbursement rates to net costs under the approved plan, with minimum shares that step up each February⁷.

The plan comes later. Under section 115A.1451, CAA must submit a stewardship plan by 1 October 2028, send the draft to the Advisory Board at least 60 days earlier, and MPCA must allow at least 45 days of public comment and act within 120 days⁸.

What has happened since the draft opened

June and July: the groundwork. Before the draft appeared, the board’s subcommittees met on waste reduction and reuse on 22 June and 8 July, on composting on 30 June and on recycling on 2 July, and Eunomia presented preliminary findings with 5-year and 10-year considerations to the full board on 15 July. The September packet records that board members raised several questions about that presentation, and that the recycling subcommittee found single-family access had not changed materially since the preliminary assessment⁴.

14 September: comments open. MPCA’s comment page invited comments on the draft from 14 September to 13 November 2026. It says the assessment was conducted by Eunomia Research & Consulting on behalf of MPCA, and it posts the main draft as a 13.8 MB PDF with a 17.5 MB file of appendices¹.

16 September: the board presentation. Eunomia presented the draft to the Advisory Board at its 16 September meeting in Saint Paul, according to the September packet, which put the item on the agenda at 1:55 p.m.⁴. MPCA’s deck, w-ps1-10, sets out the baseline, the targets and the cost scenarios. It says the work drew on 132 interviews and site visits between March and August 2026 and on three consultations with the 18 board members.

1, 13 and 14 October: information sessions. The deck lists three information sessions: a virtual session on 1 October, a second on 13 October and a hybrid session on 14 October. It asks stakeholders to use MPCA’s Engagement HQ portal to submit comments by 13 November.

8 October: the end-market debate reaches trade press. Packaging Dive reported on 8 October that the draft, which it put at more than 400 pages, recommends a consistent minimum standard for all facilities that accept covered materials, wherever they are. It also reported that the draft points to CAA’s own draft responsible end market (REM) standard as a possible reference. SPI has not yet confirmed these passages in the draft document itself.

20 and 22 October: the board meets. MPCA’s meeting page sets the next meeting for 22 October, 9 a.m. to 12:30 p.m., at the Saint Paul office and on Microsoft Teams³. People who wish to speak had to email by 20 October; verbal input is limited to 2 minutes and is not a formal comment. No agenda had been posted when SPI checked on 20 October.

“Producers must reimburse 90% of the costs to refill, reuse, recycle, or compost covered materials” MPCA, 2026 Needs Assessment comment page

After 13 November: review and final text. The deck schedules comment review for late November to early December, ahead of the 31 December 2026 deadline for the final assessment. Section 115A.1450 requires the commissioner to answer comments from the board and the PRO in writing.

What the draft assessment proposes

The deck frames the draft around four outcomes: waste reduction, reuse, recycling and composting. Recycling starts at 48% and composting at 21%. Waste reduction and reuse have no baseline data, so the draft proposes targets from zero: 1% to 4% waste reduction and 1% to 3% reuse at 5 years, rising to 2% to 10% and 6% to 14% at 10 years². Composting holds at 25% in both periods.

Cost is the second half of the picture. Baseline recycling costs come to $198.2 million to $205.6 million a year, made up of single-family collection at $99.2 million to $106.6 million, multi-family at $13.3 million, non-residential at $26.7 million and drop-off at $58.5 million. The deck puts costs at about $320 million a year in both the 5-year and 10-year scenarios.

The deck also gives tonnage. Recycling reaches 611,800 tons at 5 years, about 41% above the 2024 baseline, and 561,700 tons at 10 years, about 29% above it. The fall between the two horizons sits beside the reuse and waste reduction targets, which are designed to take material out of the system.

Reuse and waste reduction carry their own capital bills. Reuse needs $73 million of capital and $1.9 million of operating spend at 5 years, and $311 million of capital and $24 million of operating spend at 10 years, avoiding 6,200 and 84,000 tons a year. Waste reduction needs $112 million of capital at 5 years and $318 million at 10 years, against cumulative savings of $79.6 million and $359 million².

The deck’s inventory explains where the money would go. About 64% of single-family homes, more than 1.1 million, have curbside recycling, and 89% of multi-unit buildings have on-site service. The state has 18 recycling facilities, nearly half in the Twin Cities metro area, and 126 transfer stations. About 8% of households take part in organics recycling, and 92% lack curbside organics collection.

The draft also counts access gaps and climate effects. More than 90% of households in environmental justice areas have curbside access statewide, but 21% live in counties with 0% to 50% access, and only 20 of 272 drop-off sites, or 7%, have unconditional bus access. The deck puts the greenhouse gas benefit of recycling at 751,000 short tons of CO2 equivalent at 5 years, and of waste reduction and reuse at 65,000 short tons, rising to 254,000 at 10 years².

SPI calculation: reuse capital at 10 years is about 4.3 times the 5-year figure ($311 million against $73 million). Drop-off accounts for about 28% to 30% of baseline recycling cost, and single-family collection for about half.

Who pays and who is paid from 2029

Producers in the CAA programme. CAA reported 3,421 registered producers in Minnesota, according to the September packet’s summary of the July meeting⁴. Their fees will fund reimbursement from 1 February 2029, at least 50% of net cost that year and 90% from 2031. Producers with global gross revenues under $2 million, or under one ton of covered material in Minnesota, are de minimis under section 115A.1441.

Counties, cities and haulers. Service providers are the payees. The deck’s survey drew a 76% county response and 119 municipal responses covering 34 of Minnesota’s 87 counties, so the cost baseline rests on partial returns². Single-family collection is about half of baseline recycling cost, and drop-off between 28% and 30%, by SPI’s calculation.

Recycling facilities. The 18 recycling facilities and 126 transfer stations in the inventory are where responsible end market rules would bite. A minimum standard for every facility accepting covered materials, as Packaging Dive reported the draft proposes, would add documentation duties for processors that ship material out of state.

Reuse operators and composters. Reuse is the fastest-growing line in the draft, from $73 million of capital at 5 years to $311 million at 10. Composting’s baseline single-family cost is $500,000 a year, rising to about $1 million, with diversion from 4,238 tons to 5,037 tons.

Plastic and fibre formats. The July packet gave preliminary residential recycling rates of 52% for paper and fibre, 29% for metal, 21% for rigid plastic and 0% for flexible plastic⁵. Formats with low rates face the largest gap to the targets.

SPI calculation (illustration only): applying the statutory minimums to the deck’s baseline recycling cost of $198.2 million to $205.6 million gives about $99.1 million to $102.8 million at 50%, $148.7 million to $154.2 million at 75% and $178.4 million to $185.0 million at 90%. At about $320 million a year, 90% would be about $288 million. These use gross draft figures, not the net costs the statute reimburses, and are not a fee forecast.

The baseline problem behind the targets

The 48% figure is the number that every later target will be measured against, so its basis matters. The deck gives it as the statewide recycling baseline². The July packet, summarising Eunomia’s preliminary findings, gave 34% as the residential recycling rate for all covered materials, with flexible plastic at 0%. SPI has not yet confirmed how the draft reconciles the two, which may reflect different scopes.

The tonnage path raises a second question. The deck has recycled tonnage at 611,800 tons at 5 years and 561,700 tons at 10 years, so the 10-year scenario recycles fewer tons while the rate target rises to as much as 65%. That is consistent with reuse and waste reduction shrinking the material base, with 84,000 tons a year avoided through reuse at 10 years, but it means the rate and the tonnage can move in opposite directions.

The cost base has gaps too. Municipal responses cover 34 of 87 counties, and the September packet notes that board members asked for clearer labelling of where data is and is not yet available⁴. Subdivision 6 of section 115A.1450 lets service providers ask for their data to be kept non-public, so some inputs will appear only in aggregate.

Timing compounds the risk. Once the final assessment is filed on 31 December 2026, it is the baseline under subdivision 5 for five years, until the second assessment due by 31 December 2031.

How Minnesota compares with Oregon, Colorado, California and Washington

CAA is the PRO in all five states, but each law sequences assessment, plan and payment differently. Colorado ran its needs assessment first. CDPHE says a 2023 statewide assessment mapped access and set out three scenarios, and in March 2024 the Joint Budget Committee adopted the medium one¹³. The Colorado Act requires reimbursement of 100% of net recycling services costs, and dues have been payable since January 2026.

Oregon moved straight to fees. CAA may charge fees from 1 July 2025, and its Q1 2026 report puts local government funding for 2025 to 2027 at $88,435,328¹⁵. SPI has not yet confirmed an Oregon assessment set up the way Minnesota’s is. CAA’s 2026 Oregon schedule charges 25.0 cents a pound for clear PET bottles, and its Colorado schedule 14.0 cents for natural HDPE.

California and Washington sit closer to Minnesota’s model. CalRecycle says Public Resources Code section 42067 requires it to develop a statewide needs assessment collaboratively, and it has published the studies¹⁰. Washington’s Ecology department opened a preliminary needs assessment for comment from 1 to 30 October 2026, and its page says the PRO will reimburse at least 90% of recycling system cost from 2030. RCW 70A.208 sets the full assessment for 31 December 2027 and the PRO plan for 1 October 2028. The same chapter bars non-members from the market from 1 March 2029 and leaves the 2029 Legislature room to amend the programme before first plans take effect.

The money also runs on different clocks. Colorado’s dues and Oregon’s fees are already being invoiced on 2026 schedules, while Minnesota’s first reimbursement payment is more than two years away and depends on a plan that does not yet exist. CalRecycle has 75 days to review CAA’s California plan from 13 October, which runs to 27 December 2026 by SPI’s calculation, four days before Minnesota’s final assessment is due.