California’s 2023-24 legislative session wrapped up last month with some new laws to reduce waste. The governor also vetoed related bills but provided explanations sure to give lawmakers reason to adjust proposals and try again next year.
Assembly Member Jacqui Irwin, who represents portions of Ventura County and whose district office is in Thousand Oaks, authored Assembly Bill 660, which her website touts as “a major victory for consumers and the environment.” It standardizes date labels on food packaging, banning phrases such as “sell by,” which was leading to unnecessary disposal of perfectly good food.
Rather than the 50 phrases her website says are currently in use to communicate everything from peak quality to spoilage expectations, future packaging will be labeled either “best if used by…” or “use by.” The former phrase will communicate freshness, and the latter will be a product safety notice.
Another new law combining consumer advocacy with environmental goals is Senate Bill 244, authored by Senator Susan Talamantes Eggman, who represents a central California district including three counties. Following similar laws in Minnesota and New York, the new law was spurred by the “right to repair” movement, which advocates for enhancing consumers’ legal and technical abilities to fix, rather than discard, items. Focusing on electronics, consumers were frustrated by manufacturers’ attempts to limit repairs to only a small number of exclusively selected repair contractors and to make some items in ways that did not facilitate repair.
Under the new law, companies must meet goals for providing repair materials like parts, tools, documentation, and software. For products costing $50 to $99.99, manufacturers must facilitate repairs in these ways for at least three years, and for products priced at $100 or more, the minimum is seven years. The bill will cover electronics and appliances made and sold after July 1st, 2021.
The “paper versus plastic” choice at supermarket checkout counters has also been cast as an issue of consumer rights, so when a previous California law banned single-use plastic bags, it left in place an option for consumer choice. Californians could still purchase plastic bags, albeit only the thicker bags that are considered reusable. This year, Senate Bill 1053 revised the ban to include all plastic bags. Another ban also passed this year. Senate Bill 1280 will prohibit the sale of propane cylinders unless they are reusable or refillable, beginning January 1, 2028.
Sometimes, fearing a ban that could be enacted either by legislation or initiative, industries instead compromise with waste reduction advocates. Such was the case with Senate Bill 707, signed by Governor Gavin Newsom on September 28. It will require textile producers to establish a stewardship program. Like similar programs for paint, carpet, and mattresses, a textile industry-led organization will coordinate collection and recycling of the product from which they profit. They will collect fees charged on the purchase of specified textiles and use the funds to pay for some of their programs.
The California Product Stewardship Council first attempted to shepherd this bill through the legislature last year then boosted the chances of passage by hosting stakeholder discussions. These discussions led to changes in the bill language, resulted SB 707 gaining a large list of endorsements, and made California the first state to enact a bill extending to textile producers the responsibility for reducing textile waste.
The governor also vetoed similar legislation, including Senate Bill 1066, which would have required manufacturers of marine flares to submit to the Department of Toxic Substances Control a plan for collection and safe disposal of their products. Currently, when marine flares expire, consumers are stuck with an item they must pay high fees to dispose of properly. Unlike road flares, marine flares are classified as an explosive device and have special handling and transportation requirements. Therefore, marine flares are not accepted at publicly sponsored household hazardous waste collection events. The governor’s veto message encouraged proponents to make changes and try again, saying his primary objection was a lack of funding to the Department for implementation costs.
David Goldstein, a Ventura County Public Works Agency Environmental Resource Analyst, may be reached at (805) 658-4312 or david.goldstein@ventura.org
Notes:
Note used, perhaps for a separate article about buyback changes coming:
Another law, passed in the previous session but taking effect this year, also addresses a major consumer complaint. Consumers pay a California Redemption Fee when buying a beverage, but there are not enough recycling buyback centers to make it convenient for consumers to get their money back. Senate Bill 1013, which took effect last January, covered more containers in the program, but it also set up programs and mechanisms to expand the network of buyback centers. The California Department of Resource Recycling and Recovery used grants to launch new alternatives. One company, called Clynk in other states, plans to open several centers, mostly in supermarket parking lots.
New also to the three-decade old California Redemption Value program this month, but rare at recycling centers, are fruit and vegetable juice containers. Any fruit juice container over 46 ounces and vegetable juice container over 16 ounces is also charged the recycling fee upon purchase and is worth the redemption value upon sale at a buyback center.
Reusable cloth bags are one of the substitutes for either paper or plastic bags, but the cloth used is often a multi-material textile, which is also extremely difficult to recycle. In fact, textiles of all sorts are so hard to recycle, some local thrift stores have had to pay to bale locally unsellable items and then ship them, at a loss, for export. Even importers in countries with people desperate for decent clothing also end up with unsellable leftovers, including torn or broken clothing, so some American textiles have ended up in large outdoor piles.
SB 244, the electronics right-to-repair bill, was sent to Gov. Gavin Newsom on Sept. 13 and signed Oct. 10. It requires manufacturers to make tools and parts available to repair facilities and owners of certain covered products.
Apple and HP both supported the bill this year, along with 82 independent repair shops, 109 local elected officials and more than 50 environmental and consumer groups. Supporters of the bill have been trying to get similar legislation passed for over five years, but previous bills died in the state’s Senate Appropriations Committee.
Nick Lapis, director of advocacy for Californians Against Waste (CAW), said although “nobody gets 100% of what they want when they sponsor a bill,” he doesn’t feel like CAW was “forced to make any concessions that undercut the fundamental intent of the bill.”
“I was nervous when I saw how watered down the New York bill was that we wouldn’t really be able to go further than they did,” he said, adding that he’s “really impressed that a relatively small group of passionate advocates was actually able to overcome the opposition of incredibly well-funded companies with teams of lobbyists.”
Bills on the governor’s desk
Making some administrative changes to the deposit return system, SB 353 hit the governor’s desk Sept. 14. It will allow CalRecycle to be more nimble in adjusting the amount of money paid to bottle and can recycling businesses by basing the payment formula on the prior three-month average of scrap value instead of the prior 12 months.
It will also expand the state’s container redemption program to include all 100% juice containers, including bottles 46 ounces and larger starting Jan. 1, 2024.
Mark Murray, executive director of Californians Against Waste, said it’s been clear that “California’s once best-in-the-nation Beverage Container Recycling Infrastructure is in need of policy maker attention.”
SB 353 is a “positive step in the right direction,” he added, as it will increase consumer recycling incentives on juice containers, reduce consumer confusion and provide “a modest level of increased support for rural recycling program operators.”
Susan Collins, president of the Container Recycling Institute (CRI), said SB 353 accomplished a lot of long-standing goals for her organization.
The juice bottle expansion will only bring a small number of additional containers into the program, an estimated less than 1% increase, but “it closed a loophole,” she said.
That’s something CRI has advocated for for a long time, she said, along with the increase in payments to redemption centers.
“It’s the No. 1 fix we were looking for for the program so we’re very pleased that SB 353 passed,” she said, noting that the more flexible payment adjustments will help prevent redemption locations from closing.
“All together, I think SB 353 contains important measures to help stabilize the system,” she said.
David Goldstein
David Goldstein, an Environmental Resource Analyst with the Ventura County Public Works Agency, may be reached at david.goldstein@ventura.org or (805) 658-4312
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