Rhode Island's draft EPR and bottle bill study models 13% to 47% diversion across five plans; hearing 4 November

How Rhode Island's implementation analysis works

The analysis exists because the General Assembly chose study over a vote in 2025. S 0996 Substitute A created chapter 23-19.19, which directs DEM, with the Department of Administration and the Rhode Island Resource Recovery Corporation (RIRRC), to commission a statewide needs assessment and implementation analysis through an independent consultant procured by 29 October 2025.

The statute lists six areas the work must cover: a baseline waste and recycling analysis, infrastructure and capacity, environmental geographic considerations, economic and market impacts, a plan design review, and suggested performance targets and phasing for low, moderate and high scenarios. It also required an interim status report by 1 April 2026.

The plan design review must look at programme designs in peer states, consider a Rhode Island redemption fee, and take account of the final report of the earlier bottle waste study commission and of bills H6207 and S0996, the statute says. It also requires input from municipalities, quasi-public agencies, regional planning bodies, industry and affected communities.

RRS’s draft has four sections (needs assessment, EPR and DRS background, plan and cost benefit analysis, and outreach) and appendices A to F, with A and B published on DEM’s study page alongside an online comment form. An advisory council of 13 seats, by SPI’s count of the June member list, covers counties, producers, the materials recovery facility (MRF) operator, a composter, a reuse operator and academics.

The starting point is a large disposal stream. Appendix A estimates 673,869 tons disposed a year, with organics at 29%, plastic at 16% and recoverable paper at 10% of mixed solid waste, and food the largest single material at 134,925 tons.

The appendix splits that stream into 352,478 tons from the municipally serviced sector and 321,392 tons from commercial, industrial and institutional sources. Including MRF residuals, Rhode Island-generated waste disposed in 2024 was 690,701 tons. State law sets a 35% recycling rate for the state’s 39 communities, and tax filings reported 457,463,952 beverage containers sold in 2024, a figure the appendix treats as indicative rather than definitive.

Appendix A adds that Rhode Island has one MRF, run by RIRRC, which it describes as outdated, and that the Central Landfill is expected to reach capacity in twenty years.

What the draft analysis sets out

The draft and its date. RRS dated the draft 5 October 2026. Its outreach section says DEM accepted written comments on a rolling basis, that the comment period remains open, and that the public hearing is scheduled for 4 November 2026. The June advisory council deck had set a draft report to DEM for 1 September and a final report to DEM for 1 November.

Five plans. Plan 1 keeps the current system, with costs on taxpayers and ratepayers. Plan 2 follows bills H6207 and S0996, pairing a DRS for beverage containers with EPR for other packaging and paper. Plan 3 is a stand-alone EPR programme modelled on Colorado’s law, with elements from Minnesota, Maryland and Washington. Plan 4 is a stand-alone DRS. Plan 5, EPR+, builds on Plan 3 with more materials, more covered entities, away-from-home collection and reuse.

Deposit design. Plans 2 and 4 use a 10-cent deposit on beverage containers from 40 millilitres to one gallon. Plan 2 excludes plain milk, drugs, infant formula and meal replacements; Plan 4 covers glass, metal and plastic containers, excludes milk, and requires 10% of redeemed containers to be reused. In both, unclaimed deposits stay with the producer responsibility organisation (PRO), the draft says.

EPR+ scope. Plan 5 draws on the Oregon and California EPR programmes, plus Canadian and European reuse rules, according to the draft. It adds single-use plastics, including non-packaging foodservice items such as utensils, and packaging-like products, and extends coverage to commercial and institutional (ICI) sources, with a reuse return system and wash hubs.

Phasing. The deposit part of Plan 2 and Plans 3, 4 and 5 begin in Year 4 counted from enactment; Plan 2’s EPR component starts in Year 6. The draft tests each plan at Year 6, Year 9 and Year 16, which it calls full implementation. It does not tie Year 1 to a calendar year.

Scenarios. The low scenario falls below the performance targets, the medium scenario meets them and the high scenario exceeds them. The summary tables report the medium case; low and high results sit in Appendices C and F.

That line sits in the draft’s stakeholder table, which also marks producers and brand owners as carrying a cost in all four new plans.

The modelled tons, landfill life and costs

The draft’s Table 2 sets out what each plan adds at full implementation. The baseline for Plans 2 to 5 is 53,220 tons managed through recycling. Plan 1’s baseline is 67,210 tons because it counts about 13,990 tons of glass used as alternative daily cover at the landfill, which the other plans exclude.

Plan 2 adds 80,160 tons, of which 47,720 tons come through recycling and 32,440 tons through redemption. Plan 3 adds 66,200 tons, all through recycling. Plan 4 adds 29,470 tons, 26,260 tons redeemed and 3,210 tons reused. Plan 5 adds 140,410 tons, 135,330 tons recycled and 5,080 tons reused, according to the draft.

Those tons translate into landfill life. The draft estimates that the Central Landfill would gain 2.6 years under Plan 2, 2.1 years under Plan 3, 0.9 years under Plan 4 and 5.1 years under Plan 5. It also estimates full-time jobs of 2,060, 1,550, 380 and 3,430 for Plans 2 to 5.

The social return on investment, which the draft defines as the value of avoided disposal costs, greenhouse gas emissions and job creation divided by net programme cost, is USD 2.64, USD 3.12, USD 1.59 and USD 4.52 for Plans 2 to 5. The draft notes that the ratio measures cost efficiency, not total impact.

Net costs. Table 3 gives net system costs of USD 13.2 million for Plan 1, USD 72.8 million for Plan 2, USD 49.5 million for Plan 3, USD 22.0 million for Plan 4 and USD 77.0 million for Plan 5. Net cost is total cost, including education and outreach, less revenue such as commodity sales and, in the deposit plans, unclaimed deposits.

Per ton collected. The total net cost per ton collected is USD 200, USD 490, USD 370, USD 230 and USD 370 for Plans 1 to 5. For Plan 4, the draft splits the figure into USD 290 a ton for the PRO, on 31,260 tons redeemed and reused, and USD 200 a ton for municipalities, on about 65,420 tons that stay in the municipal system. It says the two rates are not additive.

Revenue. Plan 4 has the highest modelled revenue, USD 41.7 million, against USD 32.2 million for Plan 2, the other deposit plan. The draft does not split out unclaimed deposits, so SPI has not yet confirmed how much of either figure comes from deposits that are not redeemed.

SPI calculation (net cost above the current system, per added ton): subtracting Plan 1’s USD 13.2 million from each plan’s net cost and dividing by its added tons gives about USD 743 a ton for Plan 2, USD 548 for Plan 3, USD 297 for Plan 4 and USD 454 for Plan 5. This is not a measure the draft reports. Plan 1’s baseline counts landfill cover glass, payers differ by plan, and the figure ignores landfill life, jobs and litter.

Who pays and who gains under each plan

Producers and brand owners. The draft marks producers and brand owners as carrying a cost in Plans 2 to 5, since they fund each programme through a PRO. In Plan 2 that means a PRO net cost of USD 490 a ton collected; in Plan 4, USD 290 a ton on 31,260 tons redeemed and reused.

Beverage producers. Under Plans 2 and 4, beverage brands would also fund redemption, and the draft says unclaimed deposits stay with the PRO to help pay for it. In Plan 4, the DRS covers glass, metal and plastic containers and requires 10% reuse by Year 9.

Consumers. The draft marks consumers as carrying a cost only in the two deposit plans, and only for those who do not redeem their containers. In Plans 3 and 5 it marks consumers as neutral.

Municipalities and ratepayers. Plan 1 leaves USD 13.2 million of net cost with taxpayers and ratepayers. The draft marks municipalities as gaining in Plans 2, 3 and 5. In Plan 4 they are neutral, because they keep paying baseline curbside costs, at USD 200 a ton on about 65,420 tons.

RIRRC. The quasi-public corporation runs the state’s only MRF, whose operating costs were USD 12.8 million in fiscal 2025, or USD 167 a ton received, the draft says. It marks RIRRC as gaining in Plans 2, 3 and 5 and neutral in Plan 4.

The State. The draft marks the State as neutral in all plans. It estimates extra permanent DEM staff of 4 to 11 for Plan 2, 2 to 4 for Plan 3, 1 to 3 for Plan 4 and 3 to 8 for Plan 5, with PRO reimbursements covering the cost.

The pinch point: a draft without a dated comment close

The legal clock is short. Chapter 23-19.19 requires DEM to hold at least one public hearing on the draft before the final report, and the final report is due by 1 December 2026, four weeks after the 4 November hearing. The draft itself says written comments received after its date will appear in a future update.

DEM’s study page offers an online comment form but, at the time of writing, gives no closing date. ecoRI News reported on 26 October that comments are due by 16 November. SPI has not yet confirmed the comment deadline on a DEM page, nor the hearing’s time and place.

The second constraint is that the figures are conditional. The medium scenario assumes each plan meets its targets, such as Plan 2’s redemption above 85% by Year 9. Appendix B shows how far real systems drift from targets: Michigan’s redemption fell from 93% in 2015 to 70% in 2024, and Massachusetts reported 33% in 2025.

The third is time. Every new plan starts in Year 4 after enactment at the earliest, and full implementation is Year 16. SPI analysis: even if the 2027 session passed a law, the modelled costs describe a programme in the 2040s, so producers should read them as the scale of a decision, not a near-term invoice.

That horizon also meets the landfill clock. Appendix A expects the Central Landfill to reach capacity in about twenty years, and the plans would extend its life by 0.9 to 5.1 years at full implementation. The final report’s treatment of that trade-off is likely to shape how legislators weigh cost against capacity, by SPI’s reading.

What the deposit evidence shows

Appendix B reviews ten US deposit states and seven US packaging EPR states. Citing Container Recycling Institute data for 2025, it says states with a five-cent deposit averaged 56% redemption, well behind the 75% average for states with a ten-cent deposit.

Oregon is the appendix’s main example. The state doubled its deposit to ten cents on 1 April 2017 after redemption stayed below 80%, and redemption rose from 59% in the five months before the change to 82% after it, the appendix says. Oregon reported 88% for 2025.

Michigan, the only state to launch with a ten-cent deposit, shows the opposite trend: its redemption fell from 93% to 70% between 2015 and 2024, while Hawaii’s fell from 67% to 55%. The appendix presents both as states whose programme scope has not kept pace.

On EPR, the appendix lists seven state laws from Maine (2021) to Maryland and Washington (2025). It records numeric targets in statute or regulation for Maine, Oregon, Colorado and California, while Minnesota leaves targets to the agency and Maryland and Washington defer them.

The appendix also flags a data caution. Connecticut’s 2025 rate of 92%, against 65% in 2024, is likely inflated by cross-border redemption fraud, it says, and emergency legislation has since passed. Operators receive handling fees in every deposit state except Michigan and Oregon.

How Rhode Island compares with Oregon, Colorado, Minnesota and Maine

Rhode Island would not be the first state to run both systems. Oregon and Maine already combine a deposit system with a packaging EPR law, while Colorado and Minnesota run EPR without a deposit. The draft’s Plan 3 borrows from Colorado and Minnesota, and Plan 5 from Oregon.

In Oregon, Circular Action Alliance (CAA) has charged producer fees since 1 July 2025, and SPI’s Oregon story covered a rulemaking that would cut the PRO’s glass duties, with comments closing on 30 October. Colorado producers have paid CAA dues since January 2026, as SPI’s Colorado story set out.

Minnesota’s programme is at an earlier stage. Its draft needs assessment set a 48% recycling baseline, and comments close on 13 November, as SPI’s Minnesota story reported. Maine enacted its EPR law in 2021, but its request for proposals for a stewardship organisation drew no bids, according to SPI’s state-by-state Ledger.