One year after Oregon became the first U.S. state to implement a packaging Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) residential recycling program, another first emerged: the first U.S. EPR lawsuit has gone to trial.

The case, National Association of Wholesaler-Distributors (NAW) v. Feldon, challenges aspects of Oregon’s Recycling Modernization Act(RMA). The NAW – a trade association representing the U.S. wholesale distribution industry – argues that the law gives too much authority to the Producer Responsibility Organization (PRO), Circular Action Alliance, and places unfair burdens on businesses operating across state lines.

Oregon’s EPR program was implemented on July 1, 2025, and less than a month later the NAW filed a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of Oregon’s recycling legislation, which enabled the development of the state’s EPR program. While NAW supports the goal of a circular economy, the association said that the law as enacted inhibits interstate commerce.

On February 6, 2026, the U.S. District Court for Oregon granted a preliminary injunction to temporarily pause enforcement of the legislation against the NAW and its members while the case proceeds.

On July 13, 2026, the 5-day trial began.

EPR Trial Raises Broader Questions

While the case is about Oregon, the questions it raises extend beyond one state’s program.

Across North America, packaging EPR continues to expand. In Canada, Ontario and Québec, which together represent nearly three-quarters of Canada’s population, have now fully transitioned to EPR (100% industry operated and funded) for packaging, while most other provinces have some form of recycling legislation or are transitioning to full EPR. Prince Edward Island, Newfoundland and Labrador, Nunavut and the Northwest Territories do not currently have packaging EPR legislation. In the United States, seven states – Maine, Oregon, California, Colorado, Minnesota, Maryland and Washington – have enacted packaging EPR legislation and are at different stages of plan development and implementation.

PPEC is not a law firm, and we are not going to speculate on how the Oregon case will be decided. But to us, the trial marks a new stage in the EPR conversation, drawing more attention to how packaging EPR functions once it moves from legislation to the real world.

The Evolution of EPR and Packaging

The conversation is no longer focused on whether producers should fund the management of packaging at end of life, it’s increasingly shifting to how these systems operate in the real world.

When Swedish academic Thomas Lindhqvist first introduced the concept of Extended Producer Responsibility in 1990, packaging looked very different than it does today. E-commerce, online shopping, food delivery apps and meal kits did not exist. More than three decades later, convenience-driven consumption has transformed the volume and variety of packaging.

At the same time, EPR has evolved from a relatively specialized environmental policy into a significant part of how governments and businesses manage packaging at end of life.

Yet today’s products and packaging move across provincial, state and national borders, while EPR programs are still designed one jurisdiction at a time.

For many obligated companies, EPR is no longer just an annual stewardship report or invoice. It increasingly influences budgeting, packaging design, data collection, reporting systems, compliance, and business planning.

The Oregon case illustrates that once EPR moves from legislation to implementation, the conversation extends beyond who pays the bill. It becomes about how the policy functions in practice and how it affects businesses throughout the packaging value chain.

The U.S. Has Amplified the Conversation

None of this is new to Canada. Obligated companies here have been navigating different provincial EPR requirements for decades. But when the same state-by-state or province-by-province model expands into the United States, the world’s largest consumer market, these same challenges are amplified because they affect more companies, more packaging, larger budgets, and more complex national supply chains. The issues are similar, but the scale and influence are different, resulting in more questions and more scrutiny.

Dan Leif, Director of Policy Implementation at the U.S.-based The Recycling Partnership, put it well in his recent commentary, 5 takeaways from the first year of Oregon’s EPR program:

“When ushering in laws that bring new concepts to how the country does business (and that demand significant new funding from the private sector), litigation is an inevitable part of the process. The U.S. is among the most litigious countries in the world, so it’s only natural that EPR frameworks will see their fair share of lawsuits.”

That scrutiny reflects the fact that packaging EPR operates within a larger and more complex packaging system.

Complex Policy

The basic premise of packaging EPR is simple: to transfer the cost of managing packaging at end of life from local governments to the producers that introduce packaging into the marketplace. But the policy itself is deceptively complex, as it creates cascading effects throughout the broader packaging and recycling system.

While EPR legislation places legal obligations primarily on producers, its success depends on how well the entire packaging and recycling system functions, from governments developing the legislation, to Producer Responsibility Organizations (PROs) administering programs, to legally obligated producers, packaging manufacturers, distributors, retailers and foodservice operators, to residents placing recyclable materials in the recycling bin, and to the waste management sector, including collectors, material recovery facilities, recyclers and end markets.

This broader systems perspective is particularly relevant to Canada’s paper packaging industry, which has operated within a circular value chain for decades. Recovered fibre is not a waste product; it is a valuable input purchased by mills so that it can be recycled into new paper packaging.

For the paper packaging industry, EPR did not create circularity; the industry did.

A well-designed EPR system should strengthen existing systems by improving collection, reducing contamination, and increasing the amount of high-quality recovered material that reaches viable end markets where it can be recycled into new products.

Beyond Compliance

However the Oregon trial is decided, it is a reminder that packaging EPR is no longer just a compliance exercise. It no longer exists only on paper as legislation. Once implemented, it becomes part of the real world, shaping decisions made by businesses and others throughout the packaging and recycling value chain.

No one participant can make an EPR system successful on its own, and no single policy can solve the broader challenges associated with modern packaging.

The Oregon trial reminds us that the real test is whether those policies work effectively within the businesses, markets, and recycling systems they are intended to improve.