Post-consumer vs post-industrial
Under ISO 14021, scrap reclaimed within the same process that generated it is not recycled content at all, though quotations routinely count it. Post-industrial input is cheaper and easier to secure, so ask for the split before building a claim on it.
Meaning by context
Post-consumer material is material generated by households, or by commercial, industrial and institutional facilities in their role as end-users of the product, which can no longer be used for its intended purpose; it includes returns of material from the distribution chain. Pre-consumer material — the market commonly calls it post-industrial, though that is not the ISO term — is material diverted from the waste stream during a manufacturing process, excluding the reutilization of rework, regrind or scrap generated in a process and capable of being reclaimed within the same process that generated it.
Factory offcuts returned to the same line are not recycled content under ISO 14021, though they are frequently counted as such in supplier quotations.
Where this goes wrong
This is the distinction most often blurred in a quotation, because post-industrial input is cheaper and easier to secure. Ask for the split explicitly. If your recycled-content claim is built on post-industrial scrap that would have been reused anyway, the claim will not survive scrutiny.