NERC Releases Revised Model Glass Minimum Post-Consumer Recycled Content Legislation

February 16, 2023

A revised Glass Minimum Post-Consumer Recycled Content Model Legislation has been published by the Northeast Recycling Council (NERC). A subcommittee of the original stakeholders’ group revised the original version of the Model Legislation.


“The revisions to the Model Legislation provide greater flexibility for policymakers looking at available markets and glass manufacturing activity, and will allow glass recycling to move forward based on what works best in a given region or specific state,” said Chris Nelson, Director of Sustainable Materials Management Planning & Implementation with the CT Department of Energy & Environmental Protection (DEEP), NERC Board Member, and Co-facilitator of the Model Legislation Stakeholder Process.


The primary revision to the Model Legislation includes a concept of a credit towards the post-consumer recycled content requirement for products manufactured and/or sold by glass bottle and fiberglass manufacturers in a given year. The credit is based on the amount of post-consumer recycled glass consumed by other end uses that have demonstrated a climate benefit equal to or greater than that of recycling glass in a furnace—pozzolan, foamed glass aggregate, and other saleable products. 


The Model Legislation is intended to be used by legislators as a starting point for creating legislation that would require the use of post-consumer cullet—glass that has been processed to remove contaminants and is furnace ready—in certain products manufactured and/or sold in their state. According to Megan Fontes, NERC’s Executive Director, “The Model Legislation is one tool for building post-consumer glass markets. It is intended to be used with other legislative and non-legislative tools as part of a comprehensive strategy.”


The main goals of the Model Legislation are to incentivize markets for recycled glass, improve the economics of recovering glass, and reduce the environmental impact of manufacturing. The Model Legislation promotes the expanded use of post-consumer cullet in manufacturing new products, motivates development of markets for post-consumer cullet, and reduces the amount of glass that would be treated as waste.

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September 17, 2025
The City of Medford won the 2025 Environmental Leadership Award for Outstanding Community presented by the Northeast Recycling Council, for its innovative work to reduce waste and create a more sustainable waste collection system through the City’s free curbside composting program. “I'm thankful to our team at City Hall, the Solid Waste Taskforce, our consultants Strategy Zero Waste and our volunteers for working so hard to launch our curbside composting program and making it such a meaningful success for our community,” Mayor Breanna Lungo-Koehn said. “This award shows that the work we’re doing in both composting and recycling is having real, transformative effects on how our community thinks about waste and the steps we’re taking to create a more sustainable environment for the future. We are honored to be recognized by the Northeast Recycling Council for these efforts.” Each year, NERC honors a community, an organization, and an individual for their outstanding contributions to recycling education and innovation. This year will mark the 9th annual Environmental Leadership Awards Ceremony, recognizing individuals and organizations who help further NERC’s waste and recycling goals. “Our committee is wholeheartedly impressed by the work of the City of Medford, and how important and impactful that work is for the community,” said Sophie Leone, Development and Program Manager at NERC. “It is a perfect representation of NERC’s mission to minimize waste, conserve natural resources, and advance a sustainable economy through facilitated collaboration and action and we are very excited to bestow the City of Medford with this award.” You can read more about the Environmental Leadership Awards here . And if you haven’t signed up for Medford’s free curbside composting program, you can do that at medfordcomposts.com . Read on MedfordMA.org.
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