Sec. 3. Definitions
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In this Act: The term Administrator means the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency. The term advanced recycling or advanced plastics recycling means a manufacturing process for the conversion of post-use polymers and recovered feedstocks into recycled products that include basic raw materials, feedstocks, chemicals, and other products through processes that include pyrolysis, gasification, depolymerization, catalytic cracking, solvolysis, chemolysis, and other similar technologies.
The recycled products produced at advanced recycling or advanced plastics recycling facilities include, but are not limited to, monomers, oligomers, plastics, plastic and chemical feedstocks, basic and unfinished chemicals, waxes, lubricants, coatings, and adhesives. Advanced recycling shall not be considered incineration of plastics or municipal waste combustion, and products sold as fuel are not recycled products. Advanced recycling shall not be considered solid waste management , solid waste processing , solid waste recovery , incineration , treatment , thermal destruction , municipal waste combustion , waste-to-energy , or similar designations that would prevent the process from being considered a recycling process and the products from such process being considered recycled products.
Advanced recycling shall be regulated as a manufacturing process under any potentially applicable Federal, State, or local environmental laws, rules, and regulations, including, but not limited to, the Clean Air Act ( 42 U.S.C. 7401 et seq. ), the Clean Water Act ( 33 U.S.C. 1251 et seq. ), and the Solid Waste Disposal Act (42 U.S.C. 6901 et seq,). The term advanced recycling facility or advanced plastics recycling facility means a manufacturing facility that receives, stores, and converts post-use polymers and advanced recycling plastic feedstocks it receives using advanced recycling.
Advanced recycling or advanced plastics recycling facilities shall not be considered solid waste facilities , solid waste disposal facilities , solid waste management facilities , resource recovery facilities , materials recovery facilities , thermal destruction facilities , incinerators , municipal waste combustors , combustion facilities , treatment facilities , reclamation facilities , recycling facilities , or recycling centers , as defined herein or in under definitions in the Solid Waste Disposal Act ( 42 U.S.C. 6901 et seq. ), the Clean Air Act ( 42 U.S.C. 7401 et seq. ), or any other potentially applicable Federal, State, or local environmental laws, rules, and regulations.
Advanced recycling or advanced plastics recycling facilities shall be regulated as manufacturing facilities under any potentially applicable Federal, State, or local environmental laws, rules, and regulations, including, but not limited to, the Clean Air Act ( 42 U.S.C. 7401 et seq. ) and the Clean Water Act ( 33 U.S.C. 1251 et seq. ). The term approved certification system shall have the meaning ascribed to that term in section 202(c)(2) of this Act. The term auditable means a system for verifying the chain of custody between advanced recycling plastic feedstocks, advanced recycling products, and the plastics produced from advanced recycling products through attribution using mass balance.
The term certified compostable product means a product that is certified by a recognized third-party independent verification body as meeting the international standard specification ASTM D6400 (relating to standard specification for labeling of plastics designed to be aerobically composted in municipal or industrial facilities) or ASTM D6868 (relating to standard specifications for labeling of end items that incorporate plastics and polymers as coatings or additives with paper and other substrates designed to be aerobically or anaerobically composted in homes or municipal or industrial facilities).
The term certified recycled shall have the same meaning as recycled plastics. The term chain of custody means a system to document and verify the path taken through means, including but not limited to, physical methods or mass balance attribution during the production of products. The term circular economy shall have the meaning provided in section 2 of the Save Our Seas 2.0 Act ( 33 U.S.C. 4201 ). The term Committee means the National Plastic Recycling Standards Advisory Committee established under section 101.
The term disposal has the meaning given such term under section 1004 of the Solid Waste Disposal Act ( 42 U.S.C. 6903 ). The term gasification means a manufacturing process through which post-use polymers or recovered feedstocks are heated in an oxygen-controlled atmosphere and converted to syngas (carbon monoxide and hydrogen), followed by conversion into valuable raw, intermediate, and final products. The term hazardous waste has the meaning given such term in section 1004 of the Solid Waste Disposal Act ( 42 U.S.C. 6903 ).
The term mass balance certification means an auditable chain of custody accounting methodology with rules defined by a third-party certification system that enables the attribution of the mass of advanced recycling plastic feedstocks to one or more advanced recycling products. The term marketer means a person who— manufactures or purchases manufactured consumer commodities, food, and beverages; and encloses, contains, stores, protects, preserves, or identifies such consumer commodities, food, and beverages in plastic packaging for the purpose of selling, importing, or distributing in the United States.
The term mechanical recycling means a recycling process that recycles material, including plastic through a physical process, including grinding, washing, separating, drying, regranulating, and compounding. The term minimum mandate means the minimum mandate established under section 201(3). The term municipal solid waste means garbage, refuse, industrial lunchroom, or office waste, and other material, including solid, liquid, semisolid, or contained gaseous material resulting from operation of residential, municipal, commercial, or institutional establishments and from community activities, generated by a household, collected and disposed of at municipal solid waste facilities, and any sludge not meeting the definition of residual or hazardous waste hereunder from a municipal, commercial, or institutional water supply treatment plant, waste water treatment plant, or air pollution control facility.
The term does not include advanced recycling feedstocks that are collected, sorted, transported, stored, or processed for conversion to advanced recycling products through advanced recycling. Municipal solid waste can be used as advanced recycling feedstocks upon physical separation or sorting. The term national plastic recycling standards means the standards established under section 102. The term National Recycling Goal means the goal set forth by the Environmental Protection Agency during the 2020 America Recycles Summit to increase the national recycling rate to 50 percent by 2030.
The term National Recycling Strategy or the Strategy means the National Recycling Strategy finalized by the Environmental Protection Agency in November 2021. The term plastic or plastics means any material made of polymeric organic compounds derived from monomers and additives that can be shaped by flow. The term plastics packaging means any immediate container or wrapping in which the principal structural element is composed of plastic that is used to enclose, contain, store, protect, preserve, transport, or identify consumer commodities, food, or beverages for use in the sale of such consumer commodities, food, or beverages.
The term Plastics Recycling Accounting and Labeling Program means the accounting and labeling program established under section 203(a) of this Act. The term post-use plastic means a pre-consumer recovered material or a post-consumer recovered material that— contains plastic derived from a residential, municipal, industrial, community, or commercial source; is not mixed with hazardous waste except to the extent allowed by the national plastic recycling standards; and is in a form acceptable for mechanical recycling and advanced recycling.
The term post-use plastic product means material made wholly or in part of post-use plastics. The term post-use polymer means a plastic to which all of the following apply: The plastic is derived from any industrial, commercial, agricultural, or domestic activities, and includes pre-consumer recovered materials and post-consumer materials. The plastic has been sorted form solid waste and other regulated waste but may contain residual amounts of waste such as organic material and incidental contaminants or impurities (e.g., paper labels and metal rings).
It is not mixed with solid waste or hazardous waste onsite or during processing at the advanced recycling facility. The plastic’s use or intended use is as a feedstock for the manufacturing of feedstocks, raw materials, or other intermediate products or final products using advanced recycling. The plastic is processed at an advanced recycling facility or held at such facility prior to processing. The term pre-consumer plastic recovered material means material that has never reached the end user, having been diverted from the waste stream during a manufacturing process.
The term does not include material generated in a process and capable of being reused or reutilized as a substitute for a raw material without being modified in any way. Pre-consumer recovered plastic material collected, sorted, transported, stored, or processed for use in mechanical or advanced recycling shall not be considered solid waste under the Solid Waste Disposal Act ( 42 U.S.C. 6901 et seq. ) or its implementing regulations. The term processing means any method or technology used for the purpose of reducing the volume or bulk of municipal or residual solid waste for disposal.
The term does not include any method or technology used to convert part or all of such materials for on-site reuse in advanced recycling. The term pyrolysis means a manufacturing process through which post-use polymers or recovered feedstocks are heated in the absence of oxygen until melted and thermally decomposed (non-catalytically or catalytically) and are then cooled, condensed, and converted into valuable raw materials and intermediate and final products, including but not limited to, plastic monomers, chemicals, naphtha, waxes, plastic, and chemical feedstocks that are returned to economic utility in the form of raw materials and products.
The term recovered feedstock means one or more of the following materials that has been processed so that it may be used as feedstock in an advanced recycling facility post-use polymers or materials for which the Environmental Protection Agency has made a non-waste determination or has otherwise determined are feedstocks and not solid waste. Recovered feedstock does not include unprocessed municipal waste. Recovered feedstock is not mixed with solid waste or hazardous waste on-site or during processing at an advanced recycling facility.
The term recycled plastic means products that are produced from mechanical recycling of pre-consumer recovered feedstocks or plastics, and post-consumer plastics or from the advanced recycling of pre-consumer recovered feedstocks or plastics, and post-consumer plastics via mass balance attribution under a third-party certification system. The terms recycled content and certified recycled shall have the same meaning as recycled plastic . The term recycling rate means the percentage of post-use materials recycled from the total post-use materials generated, as it is measured by the Environmental Protection Agency.
Products marketed or sold as fuels or energy are not recycled materials for purposes of calculating the recycling rate. The term solid waste has the meaning given such term in section 1004 of the Solid Waste Disposal Act ( 42 U.S.C. 6903 ). Post-use plastics and recovered feedstocks that are collected, sorted, transported, stored, or processed for use in an advanced recycling facility using advanced recycling technologies or held at an advanced recycling facility prior to processing are not solid waste.
The term third-party certification system means an international and multi-national third-party certification system, which consists of a set of rules for the implementation of mass balance attribution approaches for advanced recycling of materials.
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