Breaking Down Plastics as State Regulation Expands and Litigation Evolves

Plastics regulation and litigation continue to evolve quickly, with state legislatures, regulators, plaintiffs’ lawyers, nongovernmental organizations, and state attorneys general all shaping the landscape. Recent developments reflect several overlapping trends, including tighter scrutiny of recyclability claims, growing adoption of extended producer responsibility regimes, and a broader wave of plastics litigation that now extends well beyond traditional false advertising disputes.

This Insight, the third of four based on our Earth Day webinar series, examines recent legislative developments, such as California’s recyclability labeling law and related state and federal proposals, extended producer responsibility requirements, and the evolving plastics litigation landscape, including greenwashing and microplastics claims.

STATE AND FEDERAL EFFORTS TIGHTEN SCRUTINY OF RECYCLABILITY CLAIMS

Recent legislative activity reflects a growing effort to police recyclability and other environmental marketing claims more aggressively, with California’s SB 343 serving as a model and catalyst for broader state and federal action.

At a high level, these developments are aimed at addressing perceived misuse of recyclability claims, declining consumer trust, and gaps in federal guidance. California’s law in particular reframes the question from whether a product is theoretically recyclable to whether it is recyclable in practice at scale.

Key features of California’s SB 343 include:

• Substantiated recyclability claims: It is unlawful to make untruthful, deceptive, or misleading recyclability claims, including use of the chasing arrows symbol, unless specific criteria are met
• “60/60” threshold: Products must be collected by recycling programs serving at least 60% of the population and sorted into recycling streams by at least 60% of programs
• Design and composition requirements: Certain components may disqualify a product from being labeled recyclable, including inks, adhesives, and heavy metals
• Documentation obligations: Companies must assess recyclability and maintain written records supporting those claims
• Enforcement risk: The law applies to products manufactured after October 4, 2026 and carries both criminal and civil penalties, with potential exposure under California’s unfair competition and false advertising laws

The law has been challenged on constitutional grounds, with plaintiffs arguing that it restricts truthful commercial speech, creates compliance conflicts with other states, and imposes significant burdens. The litigation highlights the broader tension between increasingly prescriptive state regulation and limits on restricting environmental marketing claims.

Other states are advancing similar proposals: pending legislation in New Jersey, New York, Oklahoma, and Massachusetts reflects a range of approaches, from California-style thresholds to broader regulation of environmental marketing claims.

In light of these state-level efforts, federal lawmakers have introduced proposals aimed at creating a more uniform national framework. The Packaging and Claims Knowledge Act would establish national standards for recyclability and related claims, including disclosure and certification requirements, while the Recycled Materials Attribution Act would address recycled content claims and direct updates to the Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC’s) Green Guides.

EPR LAWS CONTINUE TO PROLIFERATE

A second major development is the expansion of extended producer responsibility (EPR) laws, which are designed to reduce waste and shift at least part of the cost of waste management away from states, municipalities, taxpayers, and consumers and onto product producers.

They generally do this in three ways:

• Requiring reductions in packaging, increasing recyclability and/or composability, and imposing single-use bans
• Imposing producer responsibility fees to offset waste disposal and recycling costs
• Requiring reporting sufficient to measure both compliance and financial obligations

While EPR laws have long been more common in the European Union and Canada, they have gained meaningful traction in the United States since 2022, with such laws in effect in California, Oregon, Colorado, Maine, Maryland, Minnesota, and Washington (and pending legislation in numerous others).

These laws vary in detail but commonly cover plastics and paper and are structured to ensure that at least one responsible producer is accountable for each covered product sold in the state. A key feature of these programs is the producer responsibility organization. These entities help administer compliance by registering producers, tracking covered products sold into the state, calculating the fees owed, collecting those fees, and remitting funds to the state to support recycling and waste programs.

Two recent developments highlight the progress and uncertainty of EPR programs: in California, while SB 54 remains in place, implementing regulations were withdrawn and are expected to be revised, leaving statutory deadlines in effect while companies await further guidance; in Oregon, a legal challenge resulted in a preliminary injunction for certain parties but the law otherwise continues to apply, underscoring that regulatory momentum is moving forward even as key elements remain unsettled.

PLASTICS LITIGATION HAS MOVED BEYOND TRADITIONAL RECYCLING CLAIMS

Historically, plastics litigation in the United States has focused on enforcing single-use plastic bans or challenging recyclability claims in false advertising suits. Among this new wave of cases, we are now also seeing public nuisance claims, plastics recycling fraud claims, consumer protection and greenwashing cases, antitrust theories, and even property damage and personal injury allegations.

Several drivers appear to be shaping this shift: plastics remain in the news, public attention to plastic waste is high, and plaintiffs are increasingly relying on NGO reports to support allegations that industry actors have engaged in a decades-long campaign of deception about the recyclability of plastics. That theory now appears repeatedly in complaints.

Against that backdrop, recent enforcement actions and class complaints reflect how these theories are being applied in practice, with claims brought by state and local governments as well as private plaintiffs targeting a range of actors across the supply chain, from consumer brands to chemical and petrochemical companies and trade associations.

Across these cases several common themes have emerged, including allegations of industrywide deception and claims that plastic recycling representations have worsened the plastic pollution crisis. Complaints also focus on the alleged misappropriation of the chasing arrows symbol and contend that advanced recycling is not a viable solution because most plastic cannot in practice be recycled.

GREENWASHING AND MICROPLASTICS CLAIMS REMAIN A CORE CONSUMER LITIGATION RISK

Alongside these broader public law theories, greenwashing and microplastics claims continue to anchor the class action side of plastics litigation. These cases typically allege that product labels or marketing overstate a product’s healthfulness, naturalness, sustainability, or environmental benefits.

Claims such as healthy, natural, pure, plastic free, BPA free, or microwave safe can all become focal points if plaintiffs argue that the product exposes consumers to PFAS, microplastics, or other synthetic contaminants.

While not carrying the force of law, the FTC’s Green Guides remain the main federal reference point for environmental marketing claims. They caution against broad, unqualified environmental benefit claims and favor clear, specific, and prominent qualifications. In practice, this means companies must think not only about what a label expressly says, but also what a reasonable consumer may understand it to imply.

Recent decisions have underscored both the limits of these claims and the continued evolution of plaintiffs’ theories. Courts have shown a willingness to dismiss cases at the pleading stage where plaintiffs cannot establish standing, product-specific proof, or plausible allegations of contamination, particularly where claims rely on generalized studies or assumptions about product contents. Plaintiffs simultaneously are refining their approaches, with newer cases focusing on omission and failure-to-warn theories tied to microplastics exposure, some of which have survived early dismissal.

ENVIRONMENTAL DISCHARGE CASES MAY OPEN A NEW FRONT

Another noteworthy development is the emergence of environmental contamination and public nuisance claims focused on plastic discharges themselves. The Texas attorney general’s suit against manufacturers over alleged discharge of plastic pellets, or nurdles, into waterways reflects a notable pivot from consumer cases toward quasi-toxic tort and environmental discharge litigation.

This type of case signals a potential expansion of plastics litigation beyond marketing and labeling claims into direct environmental harm theories. While consumer protection and false advertising cases remain dominant, environmental contamination and nuisance claims are emerging as a secondary but growing category that may accelerate as regulation tightens and scientific research on microplastics develops.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• California’s SB 343 remains a leading state law on recyclability labeling and is already influencing proposals in other states.
• Proposed federal legislation seeks to establish national standards for recyclability and recycled content claims in response to this growing fragmentation across state regimes.
• EPR laws continue to proliferate and are reshaping compliance obligations for producers, importers, retailers, and out-of-state sellers.
• Plastics litigation has broadened beyond labeling and recyclability claims into public nuisance, fraud, consumer protection, antitrust, and emerging environmental discharge theories.
• Greenwashing and microplastics claims remain the dominant source of consumer class action exposure, particularly where labels make broad, unqualified, or implied health or sustainability claims.
• Early claim review, careful substantiation, and closer coordination between legal and marketing teams remain important tools for managing risk.

LOOKING AHEAD

The current plastics landscape is defined by expansion rather than consolidation. State legislatures are continuing to test new approaches to recyclability and producer responsibility, while plaintiffs are adapting established playbooks from other mass tort and environmental litigation into the plastics context.

For companies, the practical challenge is not limited to one product, label, or state: it is the interaction of state regulation, federal uncertainty, evolving scientific research, and increasingly creative litigation theories.

Businesses that manufacture, package, market, distribute, or sell plastic-containing products should expect that scrutiny to continue and prepare for a landscape in which both compliance obligations and litigation risk are still moving targets.

Learn more about the Earth Day 2026 webinar series >>