California touts itself as a leader on the problem of plastic garbage, but recent developments suggest otherwise.
A new report issued by the state’s waste agency shows plastic yogurt containers, shampoo bottles and restaurant take-out trays are being recycled at rates only in the single-digits.
Polypropylene, labeled as #5 on packaging, is used for yogurt containers, margarine tubs and microwavable trays. Only 2% of it is getting recycled. Colored shampoo and detergent bottles, made from polyethylene, or #1 plastic, are getting recycled at a rate of just 5%.
Other plastics, including ones promoted as highly recyclable, such as clear polyethylene bottles, which hold some medications, or hard water bottles, are being recycled at just 16%.
No plastic in the report exceeds a recycling rate of 23%, with the majority reported in just the single digits.
Adding to this disquieting assessment, CalRecycle also just pulled back regulations that were supposed to finalize a landmark single-use plastic law known as Senate Bill 54 — a law designed to make the majority of packaging waste in the state recyclable or compostable by working with the plastic and packaging industries.
The report and delay have sparked a wide variety of reactions by those who have closely watched the law as it was written and implemented.
The proposed regulations were regarded as friendly to industry. As a result, some are hopeful that CalRecycle’s decision to pull them back for tweaking means the agency will make the law stronger. Others say the two developments just show the state has never really been serious about plastic recycling.
“California’s SB 54 … will NEVER increase the recycling rates of these items … because cartons and plastic packaging are fundamentally not technically or economically recyclable,” said Jan Dell, the founder of Orange County-based Last Beach Cleanup, an anti-plastic organization.
Industry representatives are also expressing disappointment, saying the more delays and changes the state makes, the harder it is “for California businesses to comply with the law and implement the resulting changes,” said John Myers, a spokesman for the California Chamber of Commerce, which represents companies that will be affected.
Reports on abysmally low rates of recycling for milk cartons and polystyrene have been widely shared and known. But the newest numbers were still a grim confirmation that there are few options for dealing with these materials.
According to one state analysis, 2.9 million tons of single-use plastic and 171.4 billion single-use plastic components were sold, offered for sale, or distributed in California in 2023.
Single-use plastics and plastic waste more broadly are considered a growing environmental and health problem. In recent decades, plastic waste has overwhelmed waterways and oceans, sickening marine life and threatening human health.
Last spring, the Newsom administration was accused of neutering the regulations that CalRecycle had initially proposed to implement the law. The changesexcluded all packaging material related to produce, meat, dairy products, dog food, toothpaste, condoms, shampoo and cereal boxes, among other products. These are all products that might fall under the purview of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
It also opened the door to “alternative” recycling, such as chemical recycling, which environmentalists say is polluting, and was banned in the language of the law.
The waste agency then submitted those draft regulations to the Office of Administrative Law, whose lawyers and staff review proposed regulations to ensure they are “clear, necessary, legally valid, and available to the public” before finalizing them. They were set to release their determination on Friday; CalRecycle pulled the regulations back before the office issued its determination.
Neither the law office nor governor’s office responded to requests for comment.
Melanie Turner, CalRecycle’s spokeswoman, said the agency withdrew its proposed regulations “to make changes … to improve clarity and support successful implementation of the law,” and its revisions were focused on areas that dealt with “food and agricultural commodities.”
California State Sen. Ben Allen (D-Santa Monica), author of the original legislation, called the delay “entirely avoidable” in a statement, but said it would allow CalRecycle an “opportunity to ensure the regulations truly follow the law as it was signed.”
He urged the waste agency and Newsom’s administration not to “allow broad, sweeping exemptions that would undermine the program and increase costs for ratepayers.”
Critics of the watered-down regulations, such as Anja Brandon, the director of plastics policy for the Ocean Conservancy, said she wasn’t surprised by the withdrawal.
The proposed regulations “would have gone beyond CalRecycle’s authority by creating a sweeping categorical exclusion for food and agricultural packaging — effectively a loophole that would have allowed producers to continue putting vast amounts of plastic packaging into the marketplace, completely undermining SB 54’s goals and success,” she said in a text message.
Turner said CalRecycle will conduct a 15-day comment period — although when that begins has not yet been divulged.
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