SACRAMENTO, California — Recyclers, manufacturers, retailers and local governments are fighting over who should bear the costs and the responsibility to slash plastic packaging waste under draft rules that would overhaul recycling in the state.
They are increasing pressure on CalRecycle as the agency figures out how it will enforce S.B. 54, a 2022 law that requires that thousands of companies reduce single-use plastic packaging and foodware by 25 percent by 2032 and pay for and ensure that 100 percent of their products are recyclable or compostable.
The different groups are ramping up their pressure on their agency after it rewrote much of its draft rules this month in an effort to clarify how the program would work.
The tensions came to the surface at Friday’s meeting of an advisory board, where representatives from local government, environmental and environmental justice groups, manufacturers, recycling and solid waste enterprises and retail and grocery associations decide on recommendations to the regulators.
