The law requires single-use packaging and single-use plastic food serving containers to be recyclable or compostable by 2032. It also requires by 2032 to reduce sales of plastic packaging by 25% and 65% of all plastic disposable packaging recycled. And it’s creating an accountability group that will include industry representatives to manage a new state-controlled recycling program.
“Our children deserve a future free of plastic waste and all its dangerous impacts, everything from clogging our oceans to killing animals — polluting the air we breathe, the water we drink and the food we eat,” Newsom, a Democrat, said in declaration. “No more.”
Stakeholders negotiated the language around the bill, trying to create a law that would significantly reduce plastic production, increase recycling and composting, and shift the burden of plastic pollution onto industry.
Newsom signed the law just as the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the federal Clean Air Act did not give the EPA broad powers to regulate planet-warming emissions from power plants. The move was sharply criticized by environmentalists and scientists, who warned that the world is running out of time to tackle the climate crisis. Plastics are responsible for at least 232 million tons of global warming emissions each year, according to a report published last year. That’s roughly the same amount as the average emissions released by 116 coal-fired power plants.
“Remember, when you make plastic, there are greenhouse gas emissions, but these facilities also release huge amounts of air toxins and particulates,” said Judith Enck, former regional administrator for the Environmental Protection Agency and now president of Beyond Plastics. in front of CNN. “It’s really a health threat.”
Plastics also exacerbate environmental injustice. As the industry expanded, refineries and manufacturing facilities tended to set up shop in largely marginalized communities of color. According to the report, more than 90 percent of the plastic industry’s climate pollution occurs in 18 Gulf Coast communities that are home to mostly low-income residents and people of color.
“California will not tolerate plastic waste filling our waterways and making it difficult to breathe,” Newsom said. “We’re holding polluters accountable and cutting plastics at the source.”
The Ocean Conservancy, one of the nonprofits involved in crafting the bill’s language, estimated that the newly enacted law alone could remove 23 million tons of plastic waste over the next decade — about 26 times the weight of the Golden Gate Bridge.
“It’s hard to overstate how important this is,” Anya Brandon, a U.S. plastics policy analyst at the Ocean Conservancy and a key contributor to the bill’s text, said in a statement. “We cannot solve this problem without US leadership, and by passing this law, California is righting the ship.” This is a huge win for our ocean.”
While the new law is a clear win for the climate, the environment and the communities around plastic facilities, leaders in the plastics industry do not support it.
“The Plastics Industry Association is disappointed that we are ultimately unable to support today’s signed version of Senate Bill 54,” Matt Seeholm, president and CEO of the Plastics Industry Association, said in a statement. “The plastics industry remained committed to a final compromise bill that we could support, supporting a circular approach to eliminating plastic waste, which, unfortunately, we do not believe this bill achieves.”
A key measure in the law requires plastic manufacturers to pay $500 million to the state each year for 10 years starting in 2027, which will be collected in the California Plastic Pollution Mitigation Fund. The fund will then be dedicated to “reducing the impact of plastic on the environment,” the law says.
While the new California law places special emphasis on recycling, environmental experts are sounding the alarm about the inefficiency of plastic recycling. California, for example, has not met goals to recycle 75 percent of the state’s waste by 2020. Of the state’s 77.4 million tons of waste generated in 2020, roughly 42 percent was recycled or diverted, according to a report by the California resource recycling and recovery department. In 2021, Americans recycled only about 5% of their plastic waste, down from a high of 9.5% in 2014.
“At this time of extreme polarization in our nation, California has been able to show that we can pass strong environmental legislation with bipartisan support that has brought the environmental and business communities together,” California state Sen. Ben Allen, who authored the legislation, said in a statement. “With this new law, California continues its tradition of global environmental leadership.”
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