To help clarify who is an obligated producer, Circular Action Alliance (CAA) has published guidance outlining how producer responsibility is assigned under each state’s EPR program.

General rules of thumb based on CAA guidance is that in most cases, responsibility is tied to two things:

1. Whose brand is on the product, and

2. Who chooses or supplies the packaging used to deliver it to the consumer

As a starting point:

• Brand owners are usually responsible for product packaging (the packaging that stays with the product like the bottle, tube, jar, retail box, etc.).

• Retailers, marketplaces, or fulfillment providers may be responsible for consumer shipping packaging (such as mailers, overboxes, dunnage, and shipping labels) if they are the decision-makers who choose the packaging solution.

• Importers are typically responsible when no U.S.-based brand owner is directing the manufacturing.

For ecommerce brands, EPR liability often splits into two buckets:

• Product / branded packaging is almost always the brand’s responsibility. This includes primary packaging (bottle, tube, tray, pouch), secondary packaging (retail box, inner wrap, multipack carton), and branded inserts or printed materials included with the product. Even if Amazon or a 3PL fulfills the order, the brand usually remains responsible for this packaging because it’s tied to the brand’s product and manufacturing decisions.

• Consumer shipping packaging is often the shipper’s responsibility, especially when the shipper is different from the brand and is the buyer and decision maker of the shipping packaging. This includes Amazon overboxes, poly mailers, packing paper, air pillows, void fill, tape, and shipping labels.

Concrete Examples

Example 1: Paper grocery bags in Oregon vs. Colorado. This illustrates how states can treat the same packaging differently:

• Oregon: the packaging supplier/manufacturer is typically the obligated producer for paper grocery bags.

• Colorado: the retailer using the bags is typically the obligated producer.

Example 2: Brand sells via Amazon FBA or any marketplace fulfillment center. If you send inventory to Amazon and Amazon ships to the customer:

• Your brand is typically responsible for the product packaging

• Amazon or the fulfillment center is typically responsible for the shipping materials used to deliver to the consumer (the Amazon box, mailer, dunnage, etc.).

Example 3: Ecommerce brand leverages a 3PL such as ShipBob or Flexport to fulfill orders. However, they purchase branded shipping packaging for the 3PL to use when shipping their orders.

• Your brand is responsible for both the product packaging and the shipping materials you choose (mailers, boxes, void fill).

Example 4: Food service distributors, service packaging vs. branded retail packaging. Often:

• Distributors are obligated for service packaging (cups, lids, utensils) because they introduce it into the state. But if a restaurant chain ships branded retail packaging (like sauces, kits, branded wrappers) under its own brand:

• The brand owner / restaurant chain may become responsible for that branded retail packaging.

When in doubt, liability often defaults back to the brand owner, especially if responsibility isn’t clearly assigned in contracts or reporting systems.

Gray areas do exist, so many companies use a legal review or tools like a liability assessment framework (e.g., rePurpose Global) to validate their interpretation.

Regardless of state, reporting starts with the same foundational dataset. Brands should track a complete list of packaging SKUs and the packaging components within each SKU.

For each component, document:

• Packaging specifications (material, resin if applicable, thickness/gauge, coating/lining/lamination, color/opacity, etc.)

• The material classification and reporting category for that component (each state has its own category list)

• Weight per unit per component (use consistent units and keep it audit-ready)

• Units sold or distributed into each state, or a defensible proxy if state-specific data is not available

• Recycled content, when available (even when not fully required today, it is clearly where EPR programs are heading)

How Oregon and Colorado Reporting Works

Oregon and Colorado reporting is primarily designed around one central question: how much material, by type, did you supply into the state?

Example categories include:

• Paper / Fiber: Kraft Paper

• Paper / Fiber: Corrugated Cardboard

• Plastic - Flexible: HDPE (#2)/LDPE (#4) Flexible and Film Items

• Plastic - Flexible: Plastic Laminates and Other Flexible Plastic Packaging

For example:

• A glass jar with a metal lid: The glass jar weight should be reported under the glass category, and the metal lid weight should be reported under the metal category. Internally, you might track them as one packaging unit, but in the report the weights roll up into separate material categories.

• A corrugated box with labels, ink, or adhesive is typically reported under the fiber category as a single unit, since these elements are generally treated as part of the dominant material in practical reporting.

• A corrugated box with a meaningful plastic coating or laminate is typically treated as one packaging unit, but the presence of coating or laminate may shift how it is categorized.

Because Oregon and Colorado are similar, brands can often build one core dataset and generate both reports with minimal translation.

How Minnesota and Washington Reporting Works

Both states use a set of eight simplified reporting categories, which is a much lighter lift than the detailed lists:

• Printing and Writing Paper

• Glass and Ceramics

• Metal

• Paper/Fiber

• Rigid Plastic

• Flexible Plastic

• Wood and Other Organic Materials

• Compostable Materials

If you’ve already built a Colorado or Oregon dataset, rolling it up into these eight is straightforward. Other emerging states are adopting the same simplified structure for their pre-program reporting, so this is a useful format to have on hand.

How California Reporting Differs

California SB 54 is more complex because it requires both more granular categorization and additional data about plastic components.

California uses a significantly more detailed covered material categorization system, with roughly 95 categories compared to closer to 60 in Oregon and Colorado.

Categories reflect:

• Dominant material class (plastic, paper/fiber, metal, glass, etc.)

• Material type (PET, HDPE, OCC, paperboard, etc.)

• Form (rigid vs film, bottles/jars vs trays, coatings, laminates, etc.)

• Whether a non-plastic item includes a plastic component, which can change the reported category

Example categories in California include:

• Paper/Fiber: 25_PF1N - Paper/Fiber - Kraft Paper - All Forms w/o plastic component

• Paper/Fiber: 25_PF1P - Paper/Fiber - Kraft Paper - All Forms w/ plastic component

• Paper/Fiber: 25_PF9P - Paper/Fiber - Cardboard w/ plastic component

• Plastic-Flexible: 25_P10P - HDPE (#2) - Flexible and Film Items

• Plastic-Flexible: 25_P15P - LDPE (#4) - Clear Non-Bag Film

• Plastic-Flexible: 25_P16P - LDPE (#4) - Other Flexible and Film Items

California also requires brands to report:

• The number of unique plastic components within packaging

• The isolated weight of those plastic components

• In some cases, whether plastic elements are detachable or non-detachable (and how they are treated in categorization)

What this means in practice:

• Detachable components are reported separately. A jar and its detachable lid are two separate items and should be categorized and reported separately.

• Non-detachable elements stay with the base item. Labels, inks, adhesives, coatings, and laminations that are not designed to be detached are reported as part of the primary item. The item is categorized based on the dominant material and typically selected as "with a plastic component" or mapped into a laminate category when applicable.

• Laminations and coatings are generally not reported as their own items unless they are detachable under the definition. Instead, they influence which category the primary item belongs in.

When California asks for the number of plastic components in a unit, the intended approach is to count all distinct plastic components, including detachable and non-detachable elements, unless they are treated as de minimis.

A practical way to apply this:

• Count it if it is a distinct plastic piece or subpart of the packaging, whether detachable or not (caps, lids, labels, coatings, inks, adhesives, linings, barriers, layers, film wraps, zippers, valves, etc.)

• Do not count it if CalRecycle or Circular Action Alliance treats it as de minimis

Note: California signals that de minimis exclusions exist, but guidance does not yet clearly define which components qualify. Producers should consult Circular Action Alliance for evolving guidance. Some small plastic elements such as inks or adhesives may ultimately be deemed de minimis and may not need to be counted.

Two examples to illustrate California logic:

• Glass jar with plastic lid and plastic label: Report two items (glass jar with label as one item, plastic lid as a second item). Count plastic components such as the lid and label, plus potentially adhesive or ink depending on de minimis treatment.

• Paper pouch with laminated plastic barrier layer (not separable): Report one item. Count the plastic barrier layer as a plastic component unless deemed de minimis, plus any additional plastic elements such as zippers, spouts, or valves.

The plastic component count matters more than most brands realize, and not just for reporting. California’s source reduction targets apply to component count as a separate obligation from weight. Lightweighting your packaging does nothing for your component count. More on that in our Guide to Extended Producer Responsibility.

Beyond state-specific categories, brands must decide how to calculate packaging weight and state-level quantities. There are two approaches for each.

Weight of packaging per unit

• SMRM (Specific Material Reporting Method), recommended: Uses the exact bill of materials for each packaging component. This is the most accurate, audit-ready, and future-proof approach. If you have packaging specs or Specright data, this is the recommended method.

• ABOM (Average Bill of Materials): Uses representative averages across similar packaging. Easier to implement, but less accurate and riskier as programs tighten requirements. Often best as a temporary approach.

Volume of packaging in each state

• SSRM (State-Specific Reporting Method), recommended: Uses actual ship-to or point-of-sale data. Most accurate and defensible, but requires stronger systems and integration.

• Apportionment: Uses estimates and proxies such as population share, sales share, or shipment share. Acceptable as a starting point but less precise.

If you’re apportioning by population, CAA’s official method is a straightforward ratio: the state’s population divided by the total population of all states where you sell a representative number of units. Exclude states where your sales are immaterial rather than defaulting to a national denominator.

Best practice combination: SMRM plus SSRM if possible. ABOM plus apportionment can work temporarily while improving internal systems.

Our reporting template and tool: Because each state asks for data in a different format and California adds complexity, we created a packaging reporting tool designed to make compliance reporting faster, clearer, and less error-prone. The tool includes:

• Tab 1: A packaging component tracker that reflects how brands actually track packaging data and can pull cleanly from systems. It draws from guidance provided by the Sustainable Packaging Data Council.

• Tabs 2 to 4: Sample reporting outputs for Colorado, California, and Oregon that automatically summarize the dataset from Tab 1 into each state’s reporting structure

If you build a clean packaging dataset once, you should be able to generate consistent reporting outputs across states without rebuilding spreadsheets each time.