California’s plastic quality incentive payment (QIP) program offers $180 per ton for clean PET bales. | MarieKaz/Shutterstock
California last year started a unique program of providing cash payments to materials recovery facilities that produce ultra-clean PET bottle bales. Recently released data suggest the payments aren’t juicy enough morsels.
California Governor Gavin Newsom vetoed a bill that would have required thermoform-to-thermoform recycling. | Sheila Fitzgerald/Shutterstock
Following industry pushback, California Gov. Gavin Newsom vetoed a bill that would have mandated the use of some level of post-consumer resin in thermoform food and drink packaging.
California’s carpet recycling rate in 2021 was 27.9%, up from 20.9% in 2020. | Colleen Michaels/Shutterstock
California’s extended producer responsibility program for carpet achieved a sharp increase in the recycling rate last year, jumping 7 percentage points from the prior year.
California legislators sent a number of recycling-related bills to the governor at the end of this session. | Leonid Adnronov/Shutterstock
When California’s legislative session ended Aug. 31, a number of recycling-related bills passed just before the deadline. Here’s a roundup of bills currently waiting to be signed into law and that have already been signed.
Thermoforms like those shown here often contain post-consumer material from bottles, but a California bill would require post-consumer thermoforms to be used in production of new thermoforms. | Anakumka/Shutterstock
Current debate over a California bill requiring PET thermoforms to contain RPET derived from thermoforms boils down to one question: What will materials recovery facilities do?
Amended bill text would require beverage retailers to accept containers or join a dealer cooperative. | Glenn Highcove/Shuttestock
Last-minute amendments to California bottle bill expansion legislation would remove the daily fee opt-out for retailers and instead require them to either accept containers or join a dealer cooperative to coordinate collection, along with several other changes.
New legislation evokes varied reactions among industry and activists. | Michael Warwick/Shutterstock
Industry leaders mostly expressed support for California’s recently signed extended producer responsibility bill, though some said they still had concerns about its far reach. Continue Reading
Legislators have approved EPR for printed paper and packaging in California. | Kit Leong/Shutterstock
This story has been updated.
California’s printed paper and packaging extended producer responsibility bill passed the state Senate unanimously June 30 and was signed into law, just before the deadline to pull a plastic-tax measure from November’s state ballot.
California legislators, environmentalists and industry groups are working on a plastics pollution and recycling bill that they hope will persuade ballot measure backers to withdraw their initiative before the deadline at the end of this month. | rarrarorro/Shutterstock
A bill passed in New York establishes goals for carpet recycling and post-consumer content, requires the creation of a collection network and more. | Steven Belanger/Shutterstock
New York is close to becoming the second state to require producers to fund carpet collection and recycling. Meanwhile, California regulators approved carpet fees that vary based on recycled content.