Every Earth Day, we hear a lot about the importance of recycling—and for good reason. But for a system that plays such a visible role in sustainability, the rules behind it aren’t always clear.

Americans want to play their part. They look for products with recycled content and rely on labeling to make informed sustainable purchasing choices. But that only works if the system behind those claims is consistent and easy to understand.

Recycling works best when consumers have confidence and companies have clarity. Today, we’re falling short on both. Recycled content marketing claims are governed by a mix of state requirements and outdated federal guidance that don’t always align. The result is a system that’s harder to navigate, harder to scale and harder to trust.

Getting this right is critical to reducing plastic waste. A stronger, more consistent system makes it easier to increase the use of recycled materials, keeping them in circulation and out of landfills.

Today, companies are navigating different state rules for how recycled content can be defined and marketed, which creates unnecessary complexity across the system.

It creates confusion for consumers. If the same product can be labeled differently depending on where it’s sold, it’s no surprise people aren’t always sure what those labels mean, undermining confidence in the recycling system.

And it introduces risk for businesses. Unclear and inconsistent standards make it harder to invest in recycled materials, sustainable packaging and the infrastructure needed to reduce plastic waste and support a circular economy here in the U.S.

When there is no common framework, it is harder for the recycling system to operate at scale and deliver meaningful results.

That’s why establishing clear, national standards for recycled content marketing claims is such an important step forward.

The Recycled Materials Attribution Act (RMAA) offers a practical, bipartisan solution. It doesn’t reinvent the system—it brings consistency to it. The bill establishes a uniform national framework for recycled content marketing claims. It is a commonsense technical fix that reduces complexity across the recycling value chain, helps scale the use of recycled materials, supports economic opportunity and advances efforts to reduce plastic waste.

Just as importantly, it would direct the Federal Trade Commission to update and clarify its Green Guides. Those guides haven’t been updated in more than a decade, even as the marketplace and consumer expectations have changed. Bringing them up to date is a necessary step to ensure claims are accurate, enforceable, easy to understand and modernized to reflect over a decade’s worth of recycling innovations.

Clear, consistent standards would reduce complexity across the entire recycling value chain. They would give companies the confidence to invest, innovate and scale—supporting jobs and economic activity tied to recycling and recycled materials.

Through the Recycling Leadership Council, a coalition led by the Consumer Brands Association, we’re working with stakeholders across the value chain to advance practical solutions to improve recycling outcomes in the U.S. Reducing plastic waste depends on getting these fundamentals right, and clear, consistent standards are a critical part of that work.

If we’re serious about improving recycling in the United States, we have to get the foundation right. That starts with clarity.

There’s a lot of momentum right now around modernizing recycling—whether it’s improving infrastructure, increasing access or designing packaging for recyclability. Those are all important pieces of the puzzle. But without a consistent national approach to how we define and communicate recycled content, we’re making the job harder than it needs to be.

This Earth Day, we should focus not just on participation, but on performance. A stronger recycling system is within reach—but only if we bring consistency to the rules that hold it together.