When we fight long and hard for a win against plastic waste, we want it to stick.
Unfortunately, earlier this year Gov. Newsom stymied efforts by CalRecycle to finalize regulations implementing the Plastic Pollution Prevention and Packaging Producer Responsibility Act (SB 54), California’s landmark anti-plastic pollution law. The law is intended to require major reductions in plastic production, mandate all single-use foodware and packaging be recyclable or compostable, and make producers financially responsible for the full life cycle of their products.
The latest draft regulations threaten to gut the law. If enacted, they would create new broad exemptions for food and agricultural products and weaken protections against “chemical recycling,” a harmful practice that is essentially burning plastic.
This is the opposite direction we should be headed when plastic waste is piling up at crisis levels. So, we got to work.
Mobilizing public support to prevent plastic pollution
We partnered with allies including Environment California, Environment Action, Oceana, and Story of Stuff to collect statements from more than 6,000 Californians urging Governor Newsom and CalRecycle to implement SB 54 as written, negotiated, passed and signed into law.
| Andy Smith | TPIN
In August, we delivered the statements to Governor Newsom’s office, along with letters from:
- Sixteen state legislators
- More than three dozen environmental protection and environmental justice organizations
- Numerous local governments
- Nearly 50 California restaurants
- More than three dozen waste management organizations and professionals (letter 1 | letter 2)
- Over 40 scientists
- Monterey Bay Aquarium founder and Executive Director Julie Packard
Resoundingly, Californians, environmental leaders, recyclers, and businesses are standing together to call for SB 54 to be fully implemented as intended, which is to greatly reduce the amount of plastic we are producing and discarding into our environment, and to protect our communities from the environmental and health impacts of plastic production and disposal.
How we got here
Every 15.5 hours, Americans generate enough plastic waste to overflow the NFL’s largest stadium, with a seating capacity of over 80,000 people. Over the first two decades of the 21st century the amount of plastic waste across the world more than doubled. One factor driving this rise in plastic waste: the proliferation of single-use plastics. Nearly half of all the plastic produced is intended to be used just once.
To address this rising crisis, in 2022, California passed the Plastic Pollution Prevention and Packaging Producer Responsibility Act (SB 54). The law makes producers responsible for reducing plastic in packaging design, investing in effective recycling and composting infrastructure, and paying for the waste generated by their products. The law is intended to reduce the amount of plastic that ends up in our environment by an estimated 23 million tons over 10 years.
Unfortunately, under Governor Newsom’s leadership, the law is at risk of being gutted.
The August draft regulations include two stipulations that threaten to overthrow the intention of the law: to reduce plastic waste. First, they include new, broad exemptions for food and agricultural products, which means many of the things we need to buy from the grocery store or the pharmacy, like produce and over-the-counter drugs, could potentially still be packaged in non-recyclable plastic. While the law requires most single-use packaging to be recyclable or compostable, too many products in the grocery store could evade that requirement and continue to pile up in landfills and pollute our environment.
The draft regulations also weaken protections against “chemical recycling,” a harmful practice that is akin to burning plastic.
What’s wrong with “chemical recycling?”
“Chemical recycling” – sometimes called “advanced recycling” by its proponents – is an umbrella term for a set of technologies that convert plastic waste either into fuel or raw materials for new plastics.
Today, “chemical recycling” is mostly used as a new euphemism for an old and dirty practice: incineration. Plastics-to-fuel plants using pyrolysis or gasification do not turn plastic into new plastic, do not reduce demand for virgin plastics, and produce fossil fuels that are then burned, contributing to air pollution and global warming. According to the Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives (GAIA), “This is not recycling. It is an expensive and complicated way to burn fossil fuels.”
You can read more about “chemical recycling” here.
Fighting the plastic pollution threat
We know that from production to disposal, plastic threatens the environment and our health.
Making it requires drilling for oil and releasing toxins into the air. When we are done using plastic, it ends up clogging our landfills, littering our communities, or and spreading toxic microplastics.
We’re generating far more plastic than the system can handle, and much of that waste is packaging designed to be immediately thrown away.
SB 54 was designed to reduce the tide of single-use plastics. Now, Governor Newsom and CalRecycle are threatening to gut it. The good news is that CalRecycle is accepting comments from the public on their proposed weak implementation of the law.
As the October 7 deadline for critical public comments quickly approaches, take a moment to tell Governor Newsom and CalRecycle to take our plastic waste crisis seriously and fully implement SB 54.
Fiona Hines
Legislative Advocate, CALPIRG Education Fund
Fiona supports CALPIRG’s advocacy efforts across the state, leading campaigns to reduce plastic waste and protect public health. Fiona lives in Los Angeles, where she enjoys spending time in the sunshine and seeing live music.