California Clamps Down on Plastics Exports

By Arlene Karidis of Waste 360

California is the top exporter of contaminated plastic in the nation, flooding poor countries who lack infrastructure to manage it, confer stakeholders vested in curbing plastic pollution. And the state could be headed for big trouble (not unlike other states, but even more so) as pressure intensifies for policy to end U.S. plastics exports. Yet some of California’s own are among those who are most forcefully pushing to crackdown on shipments leaving their ports.

Assemblymember Cristina Garcia (D-Bell Gardens) put out a resolution (AJR 4) to urge President Joe Biden to ratify the Basel Convention treaty within his first 100 days in office. The Basel Convention made it illegal for parties participating in the agreement to export mixed and contaminated plastics to developing countries as of Jan. 1, 2021.

AJR 4 follows another recent anti-plastic export policy proposal: AB-881, which would reclassify the export of mixed plastic waste as disposal and require transparency around where recyclables are sent. Introduced by California State Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez (D-San Diego), the bill is based on recommendations that came from California’s Commission on Recycling Markets and Curbside Recycling. To count as recycled, plastic waste exports would have to be a “readily recyclable” type or mixture (polyethylene, polypropylene, and polyethylene terephthalate).