During the past decade, over forty states quickly adopted waste-diversion or recycling laws, responding to public concern about resource conservation. On the other hand, early attempts to encourage recycling by increasing demand for recyclables received a more mixed reception: only two states--Oregon and California--passed recycled content mandates for products other than newsprint. One state--Florida-- passed (and then allowed to sunset) an advance disposal fee on packaging. The federal government failed to pass any national "demand-side" policies in the early 1990s. But when scrap values for recyclables fell in the mid-1990s, the press for policies intended to stimulate demand for recyclables resurfaced. Proponents of these "demand-side" laws typically want to accomplish one of four goals: waste diversion; reduction in pollution from producing goods; reduction in consumption of virgin materials; or revenue generation to pay for recycling or other waste-management programs. Recycling is basically a means for achieving one of the first three goals, not an end in itself. Yet policies proposed to achieve these ends surfaced with little understanding of the effect these policies might have on waste-diversion, resource use, recycling, and product manufacturing. This study helps fill that knowledge gap by exploring the cost-effectiveness of these policies as a means to achieving specific levels of waste diversion and reduction in use of virgin materials. We look at four different policies: * recycled content mandates, which mandate that a proportion of recycled materials be used in packaging; * virgin materials taxes, which assess a tax on the use of material inputs based on the implied disposal costs for those materials; * advance disposal fees, which assess a charge on the final product based on the implied disposal cost for the associated packaging; and * manufacturers' responsibility, which requires manufacturers to implement waste collection and material recovery systems for their packaging and generally combines required recovery rates with packaging fees. Our study evaluated these policies at a national level, with cost estimates provided for glass, steel, three types of plastic, and paperboard. In each case, policies were evaluated in relationship to specified recycled content (or waste-reduction) levels in order to provide a metric for comparison. Our analysis summarizes the direct production costs, if packaging manufacturers had to bear the entire waste and recycled material collection, processing, and production costs and the social costs, which include both the direct production costs and the savings in reduced waste-disposal costs. The analysis ignores implementation costs by government agencies and other information-gathering and reporting costs incurred by manufacturers to comply with these policies, which could be substantial. The study also necessarily provides only a snapshot picture; changing technologies and changing economic circumstances would alter the results of our analysis. Finally, we do not try to put a price tag on air emissions or other emissions associated with different product processes. However, our study does look at total energy use and total resource use, including "use" of landfill space.