In force 11
United KingdomUK
UK Plastic Packaging Tax
Taxed below a 30% threshold
30% threshold · £228.82 per tonne
A tax, not a minimum: a component below 30% is taxed rather than prohibited, and there is a 10-tonne annual de minimis. From 1 April 2027 a mass balance approach applies to chemically recycled plastic and pre-consumer waste stops qualifying as recycled. No rate is published for 2027/28.
Threshold since 1 April 2022; this rate from 1 April 2026
Mexico CityMX-CMX
Mexico City, NACDMX-010-AMBT-2019
Post-consumer content in carrier bags
50% post-consumer
Carrier bags and bags sold for inorganic waste only, not packaging generally, and sub-federal.
since 2022
SpainES
Spain, Ley 7/2022 Título VII
Tax on the non-recycled plastic
€0.45 per kilogram of non-recycled plastic
A tax on what is not recycled rather than a floor under what is; certified recycled content is untaxed.
1 January 2023
New JerseyUS-NJ
New Jersey, P.L.2021 c.391
PCR by material category
Rigid plastic containers 10 → 50% · plastic beverage containers 15 → 50% · carryout bags 20 → 40% · trash bags 5–20% → 10–40% by gauge
Cited to the enforcing department rather than the statute: the legislature's own text was unreachable when this was checked. The department's schedule prints the last beverage steps as 2041 and 2044, which breaks its own three-year pattern.
Rigid 2024 / 2027 / 2030 / 2033 / 2036 · beverage every three years from 2024
European UnionEU
EU SUPD Art. 6(5)(a)
PET beverage bottles, national average
25%
This is the recycled-content obligation actually biting in the EU today, and it works differently from the PPWR: each member state must ensure a national average across bottles placed on its market, where Article 7 obliges the producer and is averaged per manufacturing plant and year. A producer can sit inside a national average and outside its own plant average.
from 2025
CaliforniaUS-CA
California AB 793
PCR in plastic beverage containers
15% → 25% → 50%
Per beverage manufacturer, averaged across the containers it sells in California. The 25% step is the live obligation.
2022 → 2025 → 2030
IndiaIN
India, Plastic Waste Management Rules, Schedule II
PCR by packaging category
Rigid 30 → 40 → 50 → 60% · flexible 10 → 10 → 20 → 20% · multilayer 5 → 5 → 10 → 10%
The strictest regime in force anywhere, and re-enacted unchanged in March 2026 rather than deferred. Compostable and biodegradable categories carry no requirement.
Financial years 2025-26 through 2028-29
WashingtonUS-WA
Washington, RCW 70A.245.020
PCR across covered products
Beverage containers 15 → 25 → 50% · cleaning and personal care 15 → 25 → 50% · trash bags 10 → 15 → 20% · wine in 187 mL and dairy milk 15 → 25 → 50%
Ecology may adjust the minimums downward, annually, and beverage containers have no statutory floor. No adjustment has been published.
Beverage 2023 / 2026 / 2031 · cleaning 2025 / 2028 / 2031 · trash bags 2023 / 2025 / 2027 · wine and milk 2028 / 2031 / 2036
MaineUS-ME
Maine, 38 M.R.S. §1615
PCR in beverage containers, or pay instead
25% → 30%
Satisfiable by paying $0.20 per pound of shortfall, so it prices the gap rather than closing it.
2026 → 2031
South KoreaKR
1 January 2026
CaliforniaUS-CA
California SB 54
Source reduction and recycling, not content
65% recycling · 25% source reduction
Routinely listed as a recycled-content mandate. It sets none: it requires less plastic and more recycling of it, which is a different obligation.
2032
Enacted or proposed, not yet biting 7
CanadaCA
Canada, draft Recycled Content and Labelling Regulations
Proposed minimum content
Proposed: beverage bottles 20 → 40 → 60% · rigid PET and HDPE 20 / 30 / 60% · flexibles 15 → 50%
Never published in the Canada Gazette. Not withdrawn and not in force; the percentages come from a 2023 framework paper whose own publication targets passed unmet.
Proposed for 2026 to 2030
ItalyIT
Italy, Legge 160/2019 (MACSI)
Tax on single-use plastic articles
No rate is published here. The customs agency's deferral notice is a PDF with no text layer, so the figure could not be read from a primary source, and the tax has been deferred repeatedly and never yet applied.
Deferred to 1 January 2027
ConnecticutUS-CT
2027 → 2032
No mandate, or none that operates 10
OregonUS-OR
Oregon, ORS 459A.650–.685
One of three alternatives
25%, as one option of three
A container may instead meet a 25% recycling rate or be reused five times. Oregon has always certified the aggregate rate above 25%, so nothing is pushed onto the content route.
since 1991
IllinoisUS-IL
Illinois, Public Act 103-0383
A study, not a rule
An assessment of recycling capacity. Nothing is required of producers, and there is no EPR scheme either.
Council report due 1 December 2026
JapanJP
Japan, Act 48/1991 chapter VI
Set your own target and report it
Packaging makers above 10,000 tonnes a year must set a recycled-plastic target, file a plan and report annually. The government sets no percentage, so the duty is to have a number rather than to meet one.
1 April 2026
MarylandUS-MD
Every row links the instrument itself - an official journal, a legislature, a law registry or the enforcing agency - and every one of those addresses was opened and confirmed to contain the claim before the row was written. No law-firm summaries, no trade press. Read by hand rather than collected by a scraper: a keyword hit on a proposed rule is not a mandate, and the ticker on every page reads this table.
Where a figure could not be read from the instrument, the row carries no figure and says why - Italy’s rate is in a PDF with no text layer, New Jersey’s statute text would not load, and both rows say so rather than borrowing a number from a secondary source. Levels and dates are text, not numbers, because several of them are a schedule and one of them is conditional: Article 7 bites on 1 January 2030 or three years after an implementing act that has not been adopted, whichever is later.