Colorado mass balance debate underscores industry faultlines

The American Chemistry Council withdrew a lawsuit, but the larger question on recycled content verification remains.

What happened

The American Chemistry Council this year voluntarily withdrew a lawsuit in Colorado regarding mass balance allocation methods in the state’s extended producer responsibility for packaging program plan. But the wider debate about what counts as recycled content is far from at rest.

The Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment, the defendant in the lawsuit, “will have further discussions this summer” about the excluded methodologies, according to an emailed statement, and in the interim the plan will continue being implemented.

Why it matters

Andrea Albersheim, ACC’s director of plastics sustainability policy, said first and foremost, “we never want to have to litigate an issue.” The lawsuit was more of a “just in case” action, she said, because ultimately ACC wanted to see CDPHE find a solution with the state’s producer responsibility organization, Circular Action Alliance.

The case started in November 2025, when ACC filed a complaint against CDPHE after the agency recommended that mass balance free allocation and fuel-excluded credit methods not be used when measuring postconsumer recycled content rates in the state’s packaging EPR program plan.

The complaint challenged “the removal of sensible allocation methodologies from industry recycling plans” and said it was an overreach of CDPHE’s regulatory authority.

This news brief is based on reporting published by Packaging Dive on 2026-04-17. The original report is linked below.