Summary.
SB 1625 aimed to update California's Bottle and Can Recycling Law by, among other measures, expanding the program to include all plastic bottles.
Position and Status.
CAW Supported. SB 1625 was denied a floor vote in the Assembly. Previously, the bill passed out of Assembly Appropriations Aug 7, passed out of Assembly Natural Resources June 16, passed off the Sen. Floor May 29, passed out of Sen. Approps on May 22 and passed out of the Sen. Environmental Quality Committee April 14 with a 5-2 vote.
Description.
SB 1625 aimed to significantly reduce the amount of plastic litter pollution entering our marine environment by expanding the scope of California's successful Bottle and Can Recycling Law to include more plastic bottles. Plastic marine debris pollution is a serious and growing problem, the source of which is right here on land. Up to 80% of marine debris pollution consists of plastic from urban litter. Containers under California's Bottle and Can Recycling Law are littered less than other plastic items because they have a redemption value. However, because plastics are the fastest growing component of the waste stream, only about 50% of plastic bottles are currently covered by California's Bottle and Can Recycling Law. Expanding the program to include more plastic bottles would significantly reduce plastic litter pollution this measure will result in the recycling of more than 3 billion additional plastic bottles, reducing littered and landfilled plastic waste by 130,000 tons annually and providing local governments with an additional $100 million dollars annually.
CAW Staff Contacts.
Mark Murray and Bryan Early ph 916-443-5422, fx 916-443-3912
Current Actions.
No current actions on this bill.
Senator Ellen Corbett
State Capitol, Sacramento, CA 95814
fax: 916-327-2433
Supporters.
Alameda County Waste Management Authority
Alameda Countywide Clean Water Program
Allied Waste Industries
Anheuser-Busch Companies, Inc.
California League of Conservation Voters
California Refuse Removal Council
California State Association of Counties
City and County of San Francisco Department of Environment
City of Bakersfield
City of Dublin
City of Fairfield
City of Fremont
City of La Quinta
City of Manteca
City of Norwalk
City of Sacramento
City of Santa Barbara Environmental Services
City of San Jose
City of Sunnyvale
City of Pleasanton
City of Riverside
Contra Costa Clean Water Program
County of Contra Costa
County of San Bernardino
County of Santa Clara
County of Santa Cruz
Del Norte Solid Waste Management Authority
Environment California
Glass Packaging Institute
Heal the Bay
Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries
League of California Cities
Natural Resource Defense Council
The Northern California Recycling Association
Owens-Illinois
Planning and Conservation League
Regional Council of Rural Counties
San Luis Obispo County Integrated Waste Management Authority
Surfrider Foundation
Surfrider Foundation’s San Francisco Chapter
The Sierra Club
Tomra Pacific, Inc.
Waste Management
Opposition.
American Chemistry Council
California Grocers Association
California Chamber of Commerce
California Nevada Soft Drink Association
California Recycling Services Corporation
Clorox
Coalition of Independent Recyclers
Consumer Specialty Products Association
SC Johnson
Soap and Detergent Association
Current Language, Analyses and Votes.
Additional Resources:
California labeling laws and biodegradable plastics
A SLEAZY MIX OF POLITICS, MONEY, and MISLEADING PROPAGANDA POLLUTES CALIFORNIA'S ENVIRONMENTAL LABELING LEGISLATION
The state of California has passed a law, assembly bill number 2417, stating that the words biodegradeable, oxo-biodegradable, degradable, and every possible synonym for those words, in effect, belong to the corn-based plastics (PLA) industry. No biodegradable plastic made out of naphtha, an otherwise useless industrial byproduct, may be labeled biodegradable, nor any synonym thereof, may, given current technlogy, be called biodegradable, even if they do, in fact, biodegrade in one day longer than 120 days. This is true even if the biodegradable plastic alternatives are far more likely to biodegrade in a landfill that the corn based plastic alternative. The net effect of this is to increase the demand for corn based plastics. The result of making non-food items out of corn has driven a price spike in the world grain supply that threatens hundreds of millions of impoverished third world citizens with starvation.
A further effect of this is to deny the citizens of California the benefits of new technology that makes inexpensive, recyclable, disposable plastic products-garbage bags, shopping bags, plastic cutlery, straws, styrofoam cups and containers, deli containers, soda bottles, etc. etc. The corn based plastics cannot be recycled under in any existing system in place in California, whereas the naphtha based biodegradable plastic alternatives can. In fact, the recycling lobby is trying to ban corn based plastic bottles, because it gets confused with PET, and wrecks their recycled PET plastic batches.
Who is behind this? I can't prove it, but I strongly believe that Cargill Inc. and Dow Inc. have been working behind the scenes to create this spike in corn prices, with no concern whatsoever for the lives of hundreds of millions of people who struggle to find food every day. Cargill has acquired the 50 percent interest in Cargill Dow LLC previously 100% owned by Dow Chemical Co. and has renamed the company NatureWorks LLC. That's right, that friendly neighbor Dow that brought you napalm and Agent Orange. Cargill is a huge company that has a great interest in making things besides food out of corn-no matter how many millions of children in the third world starve to death as a result. Campaign contribution laws in this country are so lax that I don't think they even had to break the law to get away with this appalling tactic.
Our plastic products biodegrade in the ground in 9 months to 5 years, but we cannot label them biodegradable in the State of California. The ASTM standard that California law refers to is a standard that requires high temperatures and frequent mixing-none of which happens in landfills. IMHO the California standard is in fact likely to mislead the public into believing that their corn based plastic products will degrade under circumstances that do not describe an ordinary landfill. Tim Dunn, http://biogreenproducts.biz
Tim Dunn, http://biogreenproducts.biz