Recycled content is a supply question

Post-consumer recycled content is the easiest thing in the world to put in a brief and one of the harder things to hold in production. The specification is a number. The delivery is a market.

We have watched three clients write 50% PCR into a pack spec and then quietly run at 30% for most of a year, because that is what was available at their volume in the months they needed it.

Why the number moves

PCR is a commodity with a collection rate, a sorting yield and a price that responds to virgin resin. When virgin gets cheap, recyclers lose margin and some stop. When collection drops in a hot summer, bale quality falls and yields with it. None of that is visible from a datasheet.

The result is that a converter who can hold 50% in March may be offering 35% in October, at a price that has moved twice.

What to specify instead

Specify a floor and a target: "minimum 30%, target 50%, reported per batch". A floor is a thing a supplier can commit to and you can audit. A single number is a thing everybody agrees to and nobody measures.

Then ask for batch-level certificates rather than an annual statement. The annual statement is an average, and an average is where a bad quarter goes to hide.

What this costs

Roughly nothing. Suppliers who are already holding good content will report it happily, because reporting it is how they justify their price. The ones who object to batch reporting are telling you something useful for free.