California Gov. Gavin Newsom has vetoed a bill that would have tightened standards for recycled content claims for products including plastic food containers.
Sponsored by Californians Against Waste (CAW), AB 2253 was opposed by packaging groups including Ameripen and the American Beverage Association. Both chambers of the state legislature passed the bill in August, with roughly twice as many yes votes as no each time.
In his veto memo, Newsom wrote: “I share the author’s goal of ensuring that environmental marketing claims are accurate and that consumers can trust the products they buy. However, I am concerned that expanding these documentation requirements will unduly burden manufacturers and suppliers already facing economic headwinds caused by federal tariff and trade policy actions. Adding new, complex compliance requirements at this time risks compounding those pressures, with little benefit to consumers.”
Kayla Robinson, legislative director of CAW, said in a statement: “It’s disappointing that California is passing up an opportunity to bring basic truth and accountability to recycled-content claims. Consumers deserve to know whether the products they buy actually contain recycled material, not whether a company has purchased credits or relied on an accounting scheme. We will continue working to ensure that ‘made with recycled content’ means what Californians reasonably expect it to mean.”
Assemblymember Tasha Boerner (D-San Diego) advanced the bill, which expands the existing requirements for plastic food containers to all products that make recycled content claims. In addition, the bill would require claims to state the actual recycled content, using methodologies including an identity-preserved, segregated model; a controlled blending model; a rolling average percentage method; or proportional attribution that aligns with ISO standards.
“Californians deserve to know exactly what we are buying so we can make informed decisions. When companies misrepresent their products or deceptively market their recycling efforts, consumers cannot trust sustainability claims. AB 2253 ensures consumers can support real sustainability if they choose to, and helps restore trust to product labels,” Boerner said in an Aug. 31 press release, when the bill headed to Newsom’s desk.
The California Legislature can override a governor’s veto with a two-thirds majority vote in both chambers, but it must do so before the two-year legislative session adjourns. But the legislature has not successfully overridden a gubernatorial veto since 1979, according to CalMatters.
Mass balance under the microscope
A bill analysis acknowledged that opponents say AB 2253 demonizes mass-balance accounting. In this method, manufacturers can “track the certified materials as they move along the value chain and attribute the inputs of a production process, like certified recycled plastic, to outputs of that production process through certified bookkeeping. Although the material’s physical features are mixed and cannot be told apart within the mix anymore, their sustainability and GHG emission data remain assigned to the batches of materials in the bookkeeping,” according to the International Sustainability & Carbon Certification (ISCC).
The analysis stated that the bill’s opponents felt “AB 2253 would eliminate a compliance tool that California’s own programs and the state’s international trading partners already rely on. The industries most affected, packaging manufacturers, food producers, material suppliers, and retailers, are not using mass balance to evade accountability. They are using it because these accounting systems are designed to match how manufacturing actually works. When materials are blended and inputs cannot be physically separated once mixed, the recycled content must be tracked across the production run rather than isolated in a single product. Accordingly, AB 2253 does not strengthen recycling. Instead, it creates a compliance wall that imposes enormous costs.”
In a July column for Resource Recycling, consultant Bill Shireman echoed these sentiments. “Supporters of California’s AB 2253 want products labeled ‘recycled’ to contain physically traceable recycled material. At first glance, that sounds reasonable. But manufacturing systems do not work that way.”
He went on to say that recycled materials often are combined with other inputs, which is best captured using mass-balance accounting. “Without that accounting method, much of the recycled content becomes difficult or impossible to verify in a practical and affordable way. The result is predictable. Recycling becomes more expensive. Affordability is reduced. Investment becomes riskier. Less recycled material is used. The value of collected materials declines. Markets weaken. And more waste ends up on land, in the ocean, or exported to nations where labor and environmental standards are lax, at best. That is the opposite of what we want.”
