For the second year in a row, a far-reaching plastics packaging bill that would have required a 75 percent recycling or composting rate died in the final hours of California’s legislative session.
The measure had passed the state Senate Aug. 30 but fell four votes short of what it needed to clear the state Assembly Aug. 31, the last day for legislation to pass in the 2020 session.
The bill, the California Circular Economy and Plastic Pollution Reduction Act, would have required producers of single-use plastic packaging and some food service items to achieve a 75 percent recycling or composting rate for their products by 2032.
It also would have required that those products be completely recyclable or compostable by 2032.
The news website Calmatters.org said many Democrats in the Assembly sat out the vote, as supporters of the bill like Sierra Club and Californians Against Waste urged their members on social media to contact legislative offices in a last effort to win votes.
In the end, the bill got 37 votes in support but needed 41 to pass the 80-member chamber. In the Senate a day earlier, the bill passed with 23 votes, two more than it needed. Democrats control both chambers by wide margins.
It’s not clear what comes next for the legislation, which was first introduced last year by Assembly member Lorena Gonzalez, D-San Diego, and Senator Ben Allen, D-Santa Monica.
A tweet by the Sierra Club of California pointed to a referendum on single-use plastic packaging that’s likely to go in front of voters in 2022. It would put a 1-cent fee on plastic packaging to fund recycling and environmental cleanup.
“For the second time in 2 years, the legislature failed to pass a plastics reduction bill. What next?” Sierra Club wrote, directing people to the referendum’s website, plasticsfreeca.org.
The bill had been through several iterations since it was first introduced last year, starting out with a focus on plastics before adding in other materials and stalling in the closing hours of the 2019 session. But the version that came back this year was narrowly focused again on plastic.
Supporters of the bill said it was a more comprehensive approach than bans pursued in other states and cities. In a Sept. 1 statement, the environmental group Oceana said it was disappointed in the vote.
“With marine plastic pollution projected to triple by 2040, the need for comprehensive single-use plastic regulation has never been more urgent,” said Christy Leavitt, the group’s plastics campaign director. “As the fifth-largest economy in the world, California could have dramatically curbed the amount of single-use plastic entering the ocean and polluting the planet by passing this bill.”
The Consumer Brands Association, which represents major packaged foods makers, said it was glad lawmakers rejected the bill, saying that the state should focus on “practical, scalable solutions” like the U.S. Plastics Pact, which launched in late August.
“For the second time, Californians demonstrated that they don’t want a band-aid approach to fixing the state’s recycling system, but rather real, lasting change,” said Meghan Stasz, vice president of packaging and sustainability with CBA.
Another plastics bill, requiring 50 percent recycled content for plastic beverage containers by 2030, did pass the Legislature Aug. 30 and now goes to Gov. Gavin Newsom.
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