Does Packaging EPR Apply to B2B Sales?

"We sell only to businesses" was the most common answer in a recent review of our Compliance Status Check submissions. It usually arrives as a conclusion. The company sells to distributors, facilities, contractors or other manufacturers, so packaging EPR must be aimed at someone else.

As a description of a sales model, that is accurate. As a scope conclusion, it is not yet an answer. No state packaging law exempts a company because it sells business-to-business. Colorado's statute does use the phrase, but only for packaging that is not intended to reach the end consumer. That is a test about where the material goes, not about how the seller describes its sales.

What the laws have instead, in some states, is a test aimed at the buyer: what the buyer does with the product, what kind of place the buyer is, or which waste service the buyer uses. Other states have no buyer test at all.

B2B is a sales label. EPR scope is decided buyer by buyer.

So the practical starting point is the customer list, not the sales model. Open it and add one column: what kind of buyer is this? Five buyer types are enough to start:

1. a distributor or retailer;
2. a large company using the product itself;
3. a small business;
4. a school or government office;
5. another manufacturer using the packaging as an input.

The rest of this article takes those rows one at a time.

How state laws draw the B2B boundary

Washington and Maryland test use. Their packaging definitions reach material "sold or supplied with the product to the consumer for personal, noncommercial use" (E2SSB 5284 §102(25)(a); Md. Code, Envir. §9-2501). The question is what the buyer does with the product.

Colorado tests the recipient. Its statute excludes packaging "not sold or distributed to covered entities." Covered entities are the places the program collects from: residences, plus nonresidential locations "including" small businesses, schools, hospitality locations, public places and state and local government buildings (C.R.S. §25-17-703(12), (25)(b)(III)). The implementing rule says the list is not all-inclusive.

Maine looks at the buyer's waste service. Its definition of "consumer" includes a "commercial business that uses or partners with a municipal or state waste management service" (38 M.R.S. §2146(1)(C-1)). Maine's program is not yet operating.

California, Oregon and Minnesota have no buyer test in their statutes.

There is no B2B exemption. There are buyer tests. Four states draw a line near the buyer, each in a different place, and three have no line that takes a business buyer out.

Row 1: a distributor or retailer

None of these tests is applied at the sale to a distributor. The distributor is passing the product on, and the tests look at the buyer who ends up using it. If a janitorial supply distributor sells your product to a cleaning contractor, the analysis is about the contractor. If a hardware distributor sells it through retail counters to households, that is personal use in Washington and Maryland, and the packaging is in.

For EPR, a reseller's customer is your customer.

This is the hardest row to fill in, because the sales system records the distributor, not the buyer after it. The same gap already exists for state attribution: EPR wants units by the state where the product reached the end consumer, and wholesale records do not show it (see What to Know About Packaging EPR). For scope the gap widens. Besides where the product ended up, you need to know who ended up with it, and usually the only source for that is the distributor.

Row 2: a large company using the product itself

This is the row the B2B instinct is built on, and the one where the states differ most.

In Washington and Maryland, on the statutory personal, noncommercial-use test, packaging supplied for a company's own commercial operations generally falls outside the definition. Paper works differently in Maryland. Its regulation defines paper products to include paper sold or supplied for use in the "residential, industrial, commercial, and institutional sectors" (COMAR 26.04.14.02), so printed paper going to the same company can stay covered when the packaging around the product does not. Washington's paper definition carries the same personal-use test as its packaging definition.

In Colorado, a large company is not named on the covered-entity list, and the list is not exhaustive. Colorado has two separate exclusions relevant to this analysis: one for certain business-to-business transactions where covered material is not intended for the end consumer, and another for packaging not sold or distributed to covered entities (§25-17-703(25)(b)(II), (III)). Neither turns every sale to a large corporation into an automatic exclusion.

California's law has no business-to-business exclusion. CalRecycle rejected one in the SB 54 rulemaking record, which our September 2026 bulletin sets out. Oregon's statute has no buyer test. In Maine, the company counts as a consumer if it uses or partners with a municipal or state waste management service.

Minnesota takes two sentences, because the statute and the current reporting instructions point in different directions. The statute has no buyer test (Minn. Stat. §115A.1441 subd. 10). For the first interim reports, the producer responsibility organization limited reporting to packaging supplied for personal, non-commercial use, and it has not said whether that continues for the 2026 data year (as of October 2026). Silence on the 2026 data year is not an extension of the earlier approach.

Row 3: a small business

This is the row that tends to surprise B2B sellers.

Colorado's covered-entity definition expressly includes small businesses and schools (§25-17-703(12)(b)). Their inclusion matters when determining which packaging falls within the reporting scope. The rules define a small business per physical location, using a sales threshold set in the rules (6 CCR 1007-2 §1.8.2, §18.1.6). A sale that reads as B2B on the order can sit inside the program because of who the buyer is.

In Washington and Maryland, the use test does not change with company size. Packaging supplied for a small business's own operations generally falls outside the definition as well. California and Oregon keep the packaging in, on the same reasoning as row 2. Minnesota's statute does too, subject to the reporting-phase point above. In Maine, the question is again the buyer's waste service.

Row 4: a school or government office

Colorado names schools and state and local government buildings as covered entities. Federal facilities are not named. Because the list is not exhaustive, that is not the same as being excluded.

In Washington and Maryland, the packaging definitions turn on personal, noncommercial use. How that applies to schools and government offices has not been settled in published guidance (as of October 2026). Two questions need to be kept apart here. One is which material counts as covered packaging. The other is which buildings the program collects from: Maryland's regulation lists schools, childcare centers and state and local public buildings among its covered entities (COMAR 26.04.14.02). The answer to the second does not settle the first.

Maine's definition of "consumer" names schools and municipal or state government facilities that use or partner with a municipal or state waste management service. California, Oregon and Minnesota have no buyer test to apply to this row.

Row 5: another manufacturer

The narrowest exits are in this row, and none of them is a sales-channel test.

Maryland, Washington and Minnesota exclude material that one producer distributes to another, which then contains a product delivered to a commercial or business entity and is not passed to anyone else (COMAR 26.04.14.05(B)(1)(k); E2SSB 5284 §102(19)(o); Minn. Stat. §115A.1441 subd. 16(14)). Washington and Minnesota add that the business uses the product to produce another product. Every condition has to hold.

Colorado's business-to-business exclusion applies here when the material is used solely between businesses and is not intended to reach the end consumer (§25-17-703(25)(b)(II)).

Maine excludes from "consumer" a manufacturer whose packaging material is managed, and paid for, by that manufacturer or a producer, where the material is used only to transport products to non-consumers or is generated in its manufacturing process (§2146(1)(C-1)).

Oregon has no producer-to-producer exclusion. A producer can instead demonstrate that particular material is collected outside the services that provide the opportunity to recycle, is not separated at a commingled recycling facility, and goes to a responsible end market. The exemption is proportional to the share of material that meets those conditions (ORS 459A.869(13)).

Each of these describes a supply chain, not a customer type. The row applies only where the customer really is using the packaging as an input.

What the column shows

Filled in, the column rarely shows one population. A B2B list can hold distributors whose own customers decide the answer, operating companies that Washington's and Maryland's use test generally takes out of the packaging definition, small businesses and schools that Colorado names as covered entities, and a few manufacturers who may fit a narrow input exclusion. The label "B2B" covered all of them. The laws look at each one.

There is no B2B exemption. There are buyer tests. And for EPR, a reseller's customer is your customer.

Where Orbitlex fits

We work through customer lists with B2B producers before any reporting gets built, so the scope rests on who the buyers are rather than on the sales label.

This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. Regulatory timelines and program requirements are subject to change. Always verify current obligations with state authorities, PROs, and qualified legal counsel directly. Orbitlex is not a law firm.