(1)(a) By December 31, 2026, the department must complete a preliminary assessment consistent with subsection (3) of this section.

(b) By December 31, 2027, and every five years thereafter, the department must complete a needs assessment consistent with subsection (4) of this section. The department may adjust the required content in a specific needs assessment to inform the next plan.

(2) In conducting a needs assessment, the department must:

(a) Initiate a consultation process to obtain recommendations from the advisory council, government entities, service providers, producer responsibility organizations, the utilities and transportation commission, and other interested parties, regarding the type and scope of information that should be collected and analyzed in the needs assessments required by this section;

(b) Contract with a third party who is not a producer, a producer responsibility organization, or a member of the advisory council to conduct the needs assessment;

(c) At least 90 days prior to finalizing the needs assessment, make the draft needs assessment available for comment by the advisory council, producer responsibility organizations, the utilities and transportation commission, jurisdictions planning under chapter 70A.205 RCW, and the public. The advisory council must have the opportunity to review drafts of the needs assessment and accompanying data used in the needs assessment. The department must respond in writing to the comments and recommendations of the advisory council and producer responsibility organizations; and

(d)(i) Consider information from studies related to recycling conducted by the department after 2019; and

(ii) Use the department's statewide collection lists for covered materials as established under RCW 70A.208.090.

(3) A preliminary needs assessment must be completed for a preceding period of no less than 12 months and no more than 36 months that includes:

(a) Identification of currently or recently introduced covered materials and covered material types;

(b) Tons of collected covered materials;

(c) An evaluation of what services related to the requirements of this chapter are currently being delivered in each county and city planning under chapter 70A.205 RCW and what the costs are for those existing services, including:

(i) The availability and types of recycling services for covered materials for residents in single-family and multifamily residences, including whether current services are considered residential or commercial and whether any gaps, costs, or needs are specific to either commercial or residential customer service;

(ii) The current methods and infrastructure for servicing residents, including curbside recycling service areas and material drop-off locations;

(iii) Any densely populated areas within each jurisdiction in which curbside recycling services for covered materials identified by the department on the list developed and published under RCW 70A.208.090 are not available or are only partially available;

(iv) Any areas within each jurisdiction where curbside garbage collection services are offered to residents in single-family and multifamily residences but curbside recycling services are not offered;

(d) Processing capacity at material recovery facilities, including total tons processed and sold, composition of tons processed and sold, current technologies utilized, and facility processing fees charged to collectors delivering covered materials for recycling;

(e) Capacity of compost facilities, including total tons processed and sold, technology used by, and characteristics of compost facilities to process and recover compostable covered materials, and facility processing fees charged to collectors delivering covered materials for composting;

(f) Capacity and number of drop-off collection sites, and the materials collected at those drop-off collection sites;

(g) Capacity and number of transfer stations and transfer locations;

(h) Average term length and variability of residential recycling and composting collection contracts issued by government entities and an assessment of contract cost structures;

(i) An estimate of the total annual collection and processing service costs based on registered service provider costs;

(j) Available markets in Washington for covered materials and the capacity of those markets; and

(k) Covered materials introduced by volume, weight, and covered material types introduced by producers.

(4) Each needs assessment after the preliminary needs assessment must include at least the following:

(a) An evaluation of:

(i) Existing waste reduction, refill, reuse, recycling, and composting outcomes, as applicable, for each covered material type, including collection rates, recycling rates, composting rates, reuse rates, and return rates, as applicable, for each covered material type;

(ii) The overall recycling rate, composting rate, reuse rate, and return rate for all covered material types; and

(iii) The extent to which postconsumer recycled content, by the best estimate, is or could be incorporated into each covered materials type, as applicable, including a review of North American sources and markets and technical barriers to incorporating postconsumer materials into covered materials. For plastic covered materials, postconsumer recycled content must be measured by rigid plastic resin type and by film or flexible plastic;

(b) An evaluation of covered materials in the disposal, recycling, and composting streams to determine the covered materials types and amounts within each stream, using new studies conducted by the department or publicly available and applicable studies;

(c) Proposals for a range of outcomes for each covered materials type to be accomplished within a five-year time frame in multiple units of measurement including, but not limited to, unit-based, weight-based, and volume-based, for each of the following:

(i) Plastic source reduction rates;

(ii) Reuse rates and return rates;

(iii) Recycling rates;

(iv) Composting rates; and

(v) Postconsumer recycled content, if applicable;

(d) Proposals for a range of outcomes for the categories established in RCW 70A.208.150(10) that consider:

(i) Information contained in or used to prepare a needs assessment under this section;

(ii) Goals and requirements of chapters 70A.205 and 70A.245RCW;

(iii) The statewide greenhouse gas emissions limits of chapter 70A.45 RCW;

(iv) The need for continuous progress toward:

(A) Overall reduction in the generation of covered material waste;

(B) The reuse, recycling, or composting of covered materials to reduce environmental impacts and human health impacts; and

(C) Progress to incorporate postconsumer content to replace virgin materials and to support more regional markets;

(v) A preference for statewide requirements that accomplish and further the goals and requirements in (d)(ii), (iii), and (iv) of this subsection as soon as practicable and to the maximum extent achievable; and

(vi) Information from paper and packaging producer responsibility programs operating in other jurisdictions;

(e) An evaluation of the criteria used for developing the lists of covered materials determined to be recyclable or compostable statewide as established in RCW 70A.208.090;

(f) Recommended collection methods by covered materials type to maximize collection efficiency, maximize feedstock quality, and optimize service and convenience for collection of covered materials to be considered or that are included on lists established in RCW 70A.208.090, or for which a group of producers has been granted a petition by the department under RCW 70A.208.090(5);

(g) Proposed plans and metrics for how to measure progress in achieving performance targets and statewide requirements;

(h) An evaluation of options for third-party certification of activities to meet obligations of this chapter;

(i) An inventory of the current system, including:

(i) Infrastructure, capacity, performance, funding level, and method and source of financing for the existing covered services for covered materials operating in the state;

(ii) An estimate of total annual costs of covered services based on registered service provider costs; and

(iii) Availability and cost of covered services for covered materials to covered entities and any other location where covered materials are introduced, including identification of disparities in the availability of these services in overburdened communities compared with other areas and to socially vulnerable populations as compared to other populations and proposals for reducing or eliminating those disparities;

(j) An evaluation of investments needed to increase waste reduction, refill, reuse, recycling, and composting rates of covered materials according to the range of proposed performance targets and statewide requirements, including what new or expanded services and infrastructure are needed in each county and city planning under chapter 70A.205 RCW, and the estimated total costs of investments needed, that would also:

(i) Maintain or improve operations of existing infrastructure and account for waste reduction, refill, reuse, recycling, and composting of covered materials statewide;

(ii) Expand the availability and accessibility of recycling collection services for covered materials to all places required under this chapter and expand the availability and accessibility of composting collection services where feasible; and

(iii) Establish and expand the availability and accessibility of reuse services for reusable covered materials;

(k) A recommended methodology for applying criteria and formulas to establish reimbursement rates as described in RCW 70A.208.170;

(l) An assessment of the viability and robustness of markets for recyclable and compostable covered materials and the degree to which these markets can be considered responsible markets;

(m) An assessment of the level and causes of contamination of source separated recyclable materials, source separated compostable materials, and collected reusables, and the impacts of contamination on service providers and on commodity values of covered material types, including the cost to manage this contamination;

(n) An assessment of toxic substances intentionally added to or residual from manufacturing in covered materials, whether this limits one or more covered material types from being used as a marketable feedstock, and best practices producers can implement to reduce intentionally added or residual toxic substances in covered materials that could be verified through suppliers' certificates of compliance, testing, or other analytical and scientifically demonstrated technology;

(o) An assessment and evaluation of current best practices and efforts on:

(i) Public awareness, education, and outreach activities accounting for culturally responsive materials and methods and an evaluation of the efficacy of those efforts;

(ii) Using product or packaging labels as a means of informing consumers about environmentally sound use and management of covered materials;

(iii) Increasing public awareness of how to use and manage covered materials in an environmentally sound manner and how to access waste reduction, refill, reuse, recycling, and composting services; and

(iv) Encouraging behavior change to increase participation in waste reduction, refill, reuse, recycling, and composting programs;

(p) Identification of the covered materials with the most significant environmental impacts, including assessing each covered material's generation of hazardous waste, generation of greenhouse gases, environmental justice impacts, public health impacts, and other impacts;

(q) Recommendations for meeting the criteria for an alternative collection program; and

(r) Other items identified by the department that would aid the creation of the plan, the implementation of the plan, and the enforcement of this chapter.

(5) The department or its contracted third party may conduct voluntary interviews with service providers of curbside recycling or composting services or recycling or composting processing services within a jurisdiction on costs for additional infrastructure, vehicles, staff, equipment, and other investments to achieve the range of outcomes proposed under subsection (4)(c) and (d) of this section.

(6) When determining the extent to which any statewide requirement or performance target under this chapter has been achieved, information contained in a needs assessment must serve as the baseline for that determination, when applicable.

(7)(a) A service provider or other person with data or information necessary to complete a needs assessment must provide the data or information to the department upon request.

(b) A service provider or other person providing the data or information may submit a request to the department consistent with RCW 70A.208.220 that the data or information be considered confidential and not made public.

(c) The contractor conducting the needs assessment must aggregate and anonymize the nonpublic data or information, excluding location data as necessary to assess needs, received from all parties under this section and must then include the aggregated anonymized data in the needs assessment.