Resin codes and the state arrows problem

The code and its graphic

Resin identification codes were established by the Society of the Plastics Industry in 1988 to distinguish plastic resin families for sorting. The numerals 1 to 7 were placed within a chasing-arrows device, and that device became the code’s dominant visual form. The function of the code is identification of the polymer. It carries no information about whether the article is collected, sorted or reprocessed in any given locality.

The consumer-comprehension literature examined in the chasing-arrows article reports that the arrows are commonly read as a recycling claim. ASTM International, which assumed administration of the code, revised D7611 in 2013 to place the numeral within a solid equilateral triangle. The standard states that resin identification codes are not recyclability claims.

The 2022 survey and what its figures state

The survey is a work of the Plastics Industry Association. Its presence on an Oregon Department of Environmental Quality server reflects hosting rather than authorship, and attribution of the survey to Oregon DEQ misdescribes its provenance.

Three distinct figures are reported, and they are not interchangeable. The first, 40 states, is a historical count: identification of plastic products is or was required in that number of states, and it therefore includes jurisdictions whose requirements have since been repealed, Oregon among them. The second, 36 states, is the count of states that currently require at least some plastic products to bear some form of identification of the primary resin type; it says nothing about the graphic in which that identification must appear. The third, 29 states, is the count of states requiring a symbol which includes a chasing arrow, and it is the figure that bears on the arrows question.

The distinction between the second and third figures is material to the description of the problem. The count of states whose statutes compel the arrows device is 29, not 36; the difference of seven represents states requiring resin identification in a form that does not specify chasing arrows. An account that uses 36 as the arrows figure overstates the extent of the statutory mandate by roughly a quarter. The survey further reports that the requirements apply primarily to bottles and rigid packaging, and that 15 states limit their scope by container size.

Beyond the headline counts, the statutes vary by container size, resin, product category, placement of the mark, the identity of the party bound and the enforcement authority. A mould designed for national distribution may therefore carry a device that one state's statute requires and another state's consumer-protection provision treats as an implied recyclability claim.

The mark as a fixed feature of the package

The resin code differs from most of the marks examined in this theme in the manner of its application. Where a sorting pictogram or a recyclability label is printed with the rest of the artwork and can be revised at the next print run, a resin code on a rigid container is frequently embossed in the mould, so that the symbol is a property of the tooling rather than of the graphics file. A mould may remain in production for a period of years and may serve several stock-keeping units, with the consequence that a change of graphic is capital expenditure rather than an artwork amendment.

That difference explains why the divergence between the 2013 standard and the older statutes has proved durable. A state that repeals its requirement, as Oregon did at section 58 of Senate Bill 582, does not thereby cause existing tooling to be replaced; and a manufacturer serving 29 states that require arrows and one that restricts them faces a choice between separate tooling and a presentation that satisfies the least permissive market. The persistence of the arrows form in the market is accordingly evidence of tooling economics as well as of statutory lag, and the two explanations are not separable from inspection of packaging alone.

Divergence between standard and statute

The relationship between the standard and the statutes is not one of subordination in either direction. ASTM cannot amend state legislation, and no legislature is obliged to track revisions to a private standard. Where a statute incorporates the standard by reference to a specific edition or date, a later ASTM revision does not update the legal requirement automatically; where a statute incorporates the standard dynamically, or merely authorises an agency to prescribe the symbol by rule, the operative graphic may be found in the administrative rule rather than in the statute. The consequence is that the 2013 revision, now more than a decade old, has not displaced the arrows form in the majority of jurisdictions that specify one.

California's approach

California has legislated to reconcile the two positions. Section 18015 of the Public Resources Code provides for a resin number within a solid equilateral triangle and restricts use of chasing arrows unless the product satisfies the recyclability criteria in section 42355.51, enacted by SB 343. The design preserves material identification while removing the element that the state treats as carrying an implied claim.

The preliminary injunction restraining enforcement of SB 343, examined in the injunction article, alters the enforcement posture without resolving the underlying design conflict. The statutory criteria remain enacted law, the injunction binds the Attorney General and those in privity or acting in concert with him rather than repealing the provisions, and the states requiring arrows are unaffected by the order in any event. The divergence therefore persists irrespective of the litigation's outcome.

Limits of the code as substantiation

The resin identification code is not evidence of recyclability. Eligibility for a recyclability representation depends on collection access, sorting and reprocessing outcomes and on the consumer-law rules of the market in which the representation is made, none of which the code addresses. Under the Federal Trade Commission's Green Guides an unqualified recyclability claim requires that recycling facilities be available to a substantial majority of consumers or communities where the item is sold, defined as at least 60 per cent; the code speaks to none of those conditions.

Two questions are accordingly distinct in relation to any embossed or printed code: whether a statute in a market of sale requires the identifier at all, and whether the accompanying word, arrow, colour or instruction constitutes an environmental representation governed by a separate regime. The federal proposals examined in the preemption article address both questions, and do so in opposite ways, one preempting non-identical state requirements and the other preserving state law generally while excepting resin codes.

Primary sources

• Plastics Industry Association, State Plastic Resin Identification Survey, May 2022 (hosted by Oregon DEQ) — Open source
• ASTM D7611/D7611M, Standard Practice for Coding Plastic Manufactured Articles for Resin Identification — Open source
• ASTM International, 'Modernizing the resin identification code', Standardization News, July/August 2013 — Open source
• California Public Resources Code § 18015
• California Public Resources Code § 42355.51 — Open source
• Oregon Senate Bill 582 (2021), section 58 (repeal of the Oregon resin-code labelling requirement)
• Federal Trade Commission Green Guides, 16 CFR § 260.12 — Open source

Note on sources and verification

An earlier draft of this page attributed the May 2022 survey to the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality and stated that 36 states still required an arrows-based presentation. Both statements have been corrected. The survey is a publication of the Plastics Industry Association, hosted on an Oregon DEQ server, and its three figures are 40 states in which identification is or was required, 36 states currently requiring identification of the primary resin, and 29 states requiring a symbol which includes a chasing arrow. The page's title has been changed accordingly, the earlier formulation having incorporated the misread figure. The figures, the authorship and the May 2022 date were confirmed against the document at the URL given.

The survey is a snapshot as at May 2022 and has not been reissued so far as could be established for this article. It is used here as the best available consolidated account and not as a statement of current law in any particular state; the counts may have changed through subsequent legislative activity, and individual state statutes were not separately verified.

The 2013 date for the replacement of the chasing-arrows enclosure with a solid equilateral triangle is attributed in secondary sources to that revision of D7611 and was not confirmed against edition text; the current published edition is D7611/D7611M-21, and the PACK Act's text refers to the -19 edition. Section 18015 of the California Public Resources Code is cited without a retrieved text, and its interaction with section 42355.51 is described from the statutory scheme rather than from an agency interpretation.

Monitoring points are any reissue of the PLASTICS survey, which would supply updated counts; any state repeal or amendment following Oregon's, which would reduce the 29-state arrows figure; a further ASTM revision of D7611; the outcome of the SB 343 litigation, which bears on whether a state may compel restriction of the arrows device; and the progress of the two federal bills, either of which would alter the relationship between the standard and the state statutes.

Last verified: 19 August 2026.