California legislators take aim at plastics with new bill package, including contested producer responsibility plan
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Dive Brief:
California lawmakers have reintroduced SB 54, a bill that would require all single-use disposable packaging, including food service packaging, to be recyclable or compostable by January 2032. The bill debuted as part of a unified Democrat-led package of almost a dozen other plastic waste-related bills on March 9.
As currently written, the bill leaves out a major part of previous versions, which had required single-use plastic packaging to have a 75% recycling or composting rate by 2032. Bill sponsors anticipate SB 54 will undergo more updates as the legislative session goes on.
Other new bills aim to standardize recycling labeling on packaging, set minimum recycled content standards for thermoform packaging, and prohibit the state from counting exported plastic scrap in its recycling rate calculations if it is landfilled, burned or dumped.
Dive Insight:
California lawmakers intend for this package of bills to be a "coordinated, multi-faceted approach” to addressing climate change and achieving the state’s goal of recycling, composting or reducing solid waste by 75%, they said in a news release announcing the package — a goal the state had hoped to, but did not, meet in 2020.
State lawmakers have had different ideas on how to achieve those goals over the years, but the package of bills is a sign that lawmakers are starting to strategize in a more streamlined way, said Heidi Sanborn, executive director of the National Stewardship Action Council (NSAC), whose organization is a co-sponsor of several bills. In past years, she said, legislators sometimes introduced competing bills, which hurt the ability to pass pro-recycling initiatives, “so it’s exciting to see legislators are working together, not just on plastics bills, but also waste bills,” she said.