Minnesota's EPR board meets 22 October split over mixed waste plants that one study prices at up to $122 million

How the board's comments reach MPCA

The Packaging Waste and Cost Reduction Act, tracked by SPI as PR-US-006, makes producers fund most of Minnesota’s recycling, reuse and composting services through one producer responsibility organisation (PRO), Circular Action Alliance (CAA). The needs assessment is the first big step. Section 115A.1450 requires the first one by 31 December 2026 and every five years after, and makes its data the reference point for judging whether statewide targets are met.

The board’s role is set in the same section. The commissioner must respond in writing to the comments and recommendations of the Advisory Board and the PRO before the assessment is finalised⁴. That is why the board is building a single consolidated text, titled “Advisory Board Draft Needs Assessment Consolidated Comments: Round 1” in the packet, rather than letting members file separately.

The targets themselves come next. Section 115A.1451 requires the commissioner to set statewide requirements and dates for six measures: recycling, composting, reuse and return rates, waste reduction and PCR content, and to review them every five years. The PRO must ensure they are met, and its first stewardship plan is due by 1 October 2028⁵.

CAA set out the division of labour at the board’s 16 September meeting, according to the packet’s meeting summary. The needs assessment, led by MPCA, is a point-in-time baseline of infrastructure, service levels and gaps. The stewardship plan, led by CAA with board consultation and MPCA approval, decides how the programme operates, is funded and is measured.

CAA also told the board, according to the same summary, that the plan validates and supplements the assessment’s data and assumptions, and that new information will keep surfacing as conditions change. The board’s chair asked members with unanswered questions to send them to subcommittee chairs, and members were promised a draft meeting summary and a Needs Assessment review guide².

What has happened since the draft reached the board

15 September: applications close. The packet’s summary of the September meeting records that the 2027 Advisory Board application window closed on 15 September with 16 applications for 10 open seats. None came in for the retailer or retailer association seat, or for the statewide environmental nonprofit seat, which remain open. By SPI’s calculation that is 1.6 applications per seat².

16 September: the draft reaches the board. Eunomia Research & Consulting presented the draft to the board, and 15 members were recorded present against a quorum of 8. The summary records two resignations because of changes in role and a new member representing the Minnesota Zero Waste Coalition in a community-based environmental justice nonprofit seat. MPCA’s draft assessment deck put the board at 18 members.

16 September: MPCA sets expectations. The same summary says MPCA’s rulemaking request for comments closed on 24 July 2026 with 63 comments, and that the agency does not expect a Notice of Intent to Adopt rules until mid to late 2027. It also records a warning about the time left before the statutory deadline.

30 September to 7 October: subcommittees meet. The recycling subcommittee met on 30 September, the waste reduction and reuse subcommittee on 1 October and the composting subcommittee on 7 October, according to the packet. Recycling members asked for a table summarising current and expected capacity needs and more detail on how loss rates were applied, and waste reduction members won Eunomia’s agreement to revisit how waste reduction counts are scoped².

5 to 9 October: comments consolidated. Subcommittee chairs set internal deadlines of 5 October for waste reduction comments and 7 October for recycling comments, with all text to the board’s vice chair by 9 October. The packet says comments needed to be actionable and that members should flag conflicting comments for discussion on 22 October.

20 October: speaker deadline. MPCA’s event page asked anyone wishing to speak to email by Tuesday 20 October. Verbal input is limited to 2 minutes and is not a formal public comment opportunity, and non-members are observers for most of the meeting¹. The page’s address carries the date 21 October, but the page itself sets the meeting for 22 October.

What the draft proposes, and where the board splits

The draft sets ranges for each statewide requirement at five and ten years. MPCA’s deck gives recycling at 50% to 55% and then 55% to 65%, from a 48% baseline, with composting at 25% in both periods. Reuse goes from 1% to 3% to 6% to 14%, and waste reduction from 1% to 4% to 2% to 10%³.

PCR is where the packet adds most detail. Board members’ comments say the draft proposes an aggregate PCR requirement of 20% to 30% after five years and 30% to 40% after ten. At year 10 the material ranges are 35% to 45% for paper and fibre, 20% to 30% for plastic, 35% to 45% for glass and 45% to 55% for metal².

MWP is the other open question. The deck counts 18 recycling facilities in Minnesota: 7 material recovery facilities (MRFs), 5 hybrid recovery and transfer facilities and 6 MWP facilities, one in the Twin Cities metro area, three in the North Central region and two in the Southwest. According to board members’ comments, the draft would allow reimbursement for new MWP plants where separate recycling collection already exists and the PRO decides more capacity is needed to hit recycling targets.

The consolidated text runs well beyond these headline items. It questions an assumed 7% profit margin applied only to collection costs, the use of MRF tipping fees as net processing cost, and capture rates modelled from data reported by one MRF. It notes that no chemical recycling plants accepting covered packaging were identified in Minnesota, and that the draft expects about 3% population growth without modelling it².

The comments also press on data and fairness. They ask the draft to separate measured, modelled and extrapolated figures, and to give future MRF investment estimates by region and facility type. On environmental justice, they ask MPCA to apply the full statutory definition and to weigh facility impacts, cumulative impacts and worker protections, all of which bear on where any new MWP plant would sit.

Two further passages touch the target debate. The comments say collection lists should rest on recycling pathways already shown to work rather than on possible future technologies such as chemical recycling. They also recommend that all covered materials share the waste reduction burden, rather than letting high-performing materials meet requirements without driving change elsewhere. On toxics, they say a material should not count as effectively recyclable or compostable if intentionally added toxic substances stop it becoming safe, marketable feedstock.

Who gains and who pays if new MWP is funded

Producers in the CAA programme. Producers fund reimbursement from 1 February 2029, at no less than 50% of net cost, rising to 75% by 2030 and 90% by 2031 under section 115A.1455⁶. Where new MWP spending is reimbursed, it would form part of that net cost, so the cost test board members want bears on producer fees.

Counties and MWP operators. The six existing MWP facilities sit outside the Twin Cities in all but one case, according to MPCA’s deck. Board members accept that existing plants recovering covered materials may provide eligible services, which leaves their reimbursement distinct from the new-build question. Hennepin County’s 2024 study is the Minnesota benchmark in the comments: $102 million to $122 million of capital and $36 million to $44 million a year to operate.

MPCA’s own model. Board members also cite MPCA’s 2026 Draft Resource Management Report, which models a large-scale MWP plant processing 416,000 tons of mixed waste a year at about $126 million of capital and $58 million a year in annualised capital and operating costs, or about $140 a ton. By SPI’s calculation, $58 million divided by 416,000 tons is $139 a ton, which matches the cited figure.

Households without curbside service. The comments say draft Table 17 estimates 636,314 households statewide and 115,840 in the Twin Cities metro area lack curbside recycling, and that the draft does not adequately explain why. By SPI’s calculation about 520,000 of those households, or 82%, are outside the metro area.

Reuse and source-separated recycling. The comments argue that money spent on MWP is unavailable for waste reduction, reuse, source-separated collection or upgrades to existing MRFs. Those are the services that would compete with new MWP for the same producer funds.

SPI calculation (illustration only): the Hennepin study’s $36 million to $44 million a year in operating cost equals about 18% to 22% of the $198.2 million to $205.6 million baseline recycling cost in MPCA’s deck. The figures come from different studies and bases, so this shows scale, not a forecast of what producers would fund.

The squeeze between now and 31 December

The calendar is the constraint. The board meets 22 days before comments close on 13 November, and MPCA then has 48 days to the statutory deadline of 31 December 2026, by SPI’s calculation. The packet says MPCA will not be able to substantially rework major modelling in response to comments in that time.

That sets up a split outcome. Requests that need new modelling, such as a capacity table, a population growth scenario or MRF capture rates from more than one plant, may not make the final text. Requests that change wording, such as a condition that new MWP needs MPCA approval or a clearer line between measured, modelled and extrapolated data, are easier to absorb.

The MWP question falls between the two. A condition on who decides new MWP capacity is needed is a drafting change, but the cost test the comments propose, measured per additional ton of covered material delivered to a responsible end market, would need data the draft may not yet hold. Board members’ comments also argue that residents who hear recyclables are pulled from the trash are less likely to use separate recycling, a point that is hard to model at all.

The packet does not say whether the board will hold a second round or a formal vote before 13 November. The agenda calls the 22 October session a first round review, and the consolidated text is labelled Round 1².

How Minnesota's targets compare with other states

Minnesota’s draft is one of several US state frameworks with reduction or recycled content targets. Maryland’s Chapter 431 of 2025 requires each participating producer to cut packaging waste by not less than 25% within five years after the first plan is approved, with that plan due by 1 July 2028⁹. The Maryland Department of the Environment says the law was signed on 13 May 2025 and that a final action notice on its rules is dated 15 May 2026.

For PCR, the closest comparisons are product-specific. CalRecycle says California’s AB 793 requires plastic beverage containers to carry 25% postconsumer recycled plastic from 1 January 2025 and 50% from 1 January 2030⁷. New Jersey’s Recycled Content Law FAQ sets rigid plastic containers at 20% in 2027, 30% in 2030 and 50% in 2036, and plastic beverage containers at 25% in 2030 and 50% in 2044⁸.

Minnesota’s draft differs in scope. Its PCR range is an aggregate across all covered materials, with material ranges at year 10, and its waste reduction range applies statewide rather than per producer. Those bases do not line up with Maryland’s per-producer cut or California’s and New Jersey’s container levels. The timing also differs: Maryland’s 25% cut runs from first plan approval, after 1 July 2028, while Minnesota’s ranges are counted from the needs assessment’s own five-year and ten-year horizons.