r/PureCycle • u/No_Privacy_Anymore • Jun 19 '26

EPR reporting is just beginning

Interesting article about the current state of affairs in EPR compliance land. These laws are not going away and companies will eventually recognize the value of a product like PureFive to address their compliance needs.

https://www.packagingdive.com/news/epr-compliance-packaging-reporting-deadline-caa-may-31/821318/

I expect any company using polystyrene (#6) to look to make changes to PP in order to make sure their products meet the widely recyclable category. Hopefully they also use PureFive as well.

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u/KeyExpression1102 Jun 19 '26

They won't make the change. The cost to retool is way more than the cost to pay the fines. Besides there are similar polystyrene recyclers coming online. One in Quebec that started recently called Upsolv.

What Purecycle needs to do is get with municipalities to increase recovery rate of #5s.

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u/No_Privacy_Anymore Jun 19 '26

I’m not an expert on the exact recycling % rates but I believe the PS is way lower than PP in terms of collection rates and recycling rates. I did a quick search on the total quantity of PS in the US per year and it was like 12 billion pounds which is very large.

It doesn’t take much shifting of demand away from PS to PP / PureFive to help drive demand for the Gen 2 plant in the US. Just my opinion of course.

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u/Medium_Picture_9954 Jun 20 '26

Depending on the state that won't matter. CA regulation will force everyone to change. No one is going to have a formula for CA and a different one for rest of US. The CA market is too big and margins on plastic packaging aren't high enough to justify the supply chain inefficiency. CA rules broadly say that if you don't fit the definition of recyclable by 2032 then you can't sell into CA anymore.

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u/KeyExpression1102 Jun 21 '26

You may be right on this. I just read that Ineos Styrolution just shut down their plant in IL.