California Passed a Landmark Law About Plastic Pollution. Why Are Some Environmentalists Still Concerned?

James Bruggers | October 12, 2022 | Inside Climate News

California has a new environmental law that’s described as either a major milestone on the road to tackling the scourge of plastic pollution—or a future failure with a loophole big enough to accommodate a fleet of garbage trucks.

The law, which seeks to make the producers and sellers of plastic packaging responsible for their waste, divided California’s sizable environmental community during its development over the last few years. Key environmental organizations eventually came around to supporting it. But more than three months after Gov. Gavin Newsom signed what’s known as SB 54, the Plastic Pollution Prevention and Packaging Producer Responsibility Act is still stirring controversy.

After tense negotiations under pressure from a looming, high-stakes deadline, a compromise last summer won the day—and political leaders were able to claim a big environmental victory in the battle to take a bite out of the global plastics crisis.

Among its provisions, the law requires certain types of packaging in the state to be recyclable or compostable by 2032. It cuts plastic packaging by 25 percent in 10 years and requires 65 percent of all single-use plastic packaging to be recycled in the same timeframe.

The law’s supporters say that could go a long way toward corralling pollution from plastic packaging in the country’s largest state, with a population of 39 million. They hope it will spur other states to begin to hold the plastics industry accountable for waste that’s choking oceans and getting inside human bodies.

“We are very proud of the work we got done,” said state Sen. Ben Allen, SB 54’s main sponsor, in a recent webinar hosted by the National Stewardship Action Council, a Sacramento-based organization that was involved in the negotiations over the final language of the law. “I am very pleased with what this is going to mean for California, our environment, and also our local governments and their budgets.”

However, there are also lingering concerns in some environmental camps that the law gives the industry too much control over itself and that less-than-specific wording in one section could allow for the controversial practice of chemical recycling of plastics, which environmentalists don’t consider to be recycling.

Another part of the law is worded broadly enough to possibly exempt a wide array of plastic products from having to comply with a primary thrust of the law, which is to shift plastic pollution responsibilities from consumers to companies that make and use plastic packaging, said Judith Enck, founder and president of Beyond Plastics, which works to reduce plastics waste in the environment.

The language at issue would allow California’s Department of Resources Recycling and Recovery, known as CalRecycle, to exempt materials that present “unique challenges” in complying with the extended producer responsibility provisions of the law.

The wording could invite legal challenges to exempt polystyrene, which is used to make cups, lids and plasticware, bread or frozen food bags made from low-density polyethylene, or other kinds of containers, Enck said. Other experts said there are concerns that makers of toothpaste will seek to exempt toothpaste tubes.

The result could be a lot of lawsuits from companies seeking the exemptions, said Enck, a former regional administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. “Many, many companies will apply for that loophole. If they don’t get the loophole, the state will be sued. The attorney general will have to represent the state. It’s just a recipe for disaster.”

Other environmental advocates are less concerned about potential loopholes but agree with the need to closely watch CalRecycle officials as they draft regulations for the new law, and then hold the agency accountable for its enforcement.

“Judith is right in that we should watch the regulations’ development with an eagle eye,” said Heidi Sanborn, founder and executive director of the National Stewardship Action Council. “The industries are going to fight like heck to get what they want. We have to fight like heck to get what we want. That is normal.”

Read the full article. >>