SB 353 aims to protect recycling companies from severe market fluctuations, which have been a factor in many closures. | Susanne Pommer/Shutterstock
A newly introduced bill in the California Senate would adjust how state regulators calculate the amount of money paid to bottle and can recycling businesses, helping those companies avoid steep financial losses when scrap values plummet.
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The new act is built on the Break Free From Plastic Pollution Act, which was introduced in the last two Congressional sessions but failed to move forward. | Rob Crandall/Shutterstock
A newly introduced bill in Congress is reviving parts of the Break Free From Plastic Pollution Act, with a focus on environmental justice.
The Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries (ISRI) created the Recycling Industry Operating Standard (RIOS) to promote environmental consciousness and ensure MRF workers’ health and safety. | MichaelFelixPhotography/Shutterstock
Looking to support employees and set a higher bar for quality, Oregon-based Far West Recycling certified its northeast Portland facility to the Recycling Industry Operating Standard. It is the first MRF to do so.
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 MRFs that produce ultra-clean PET bottle bales. Recently released data suggest the payments aren’t juicy enough morsels.
Proposed regulations in Canada would limit the use of the chasing-arrows symbol among other provisions. | Alexander Sviridov/Shutterstock
The Canadian government will develop rules for recyclability and compostability labeling and establish a federal plastics registry for producers of plastic products.
Polypropylene rigid containers have been upgraded to “widely recycled” under the How2Recycle labeling protocol. | Colleen Michaels/Shutterstock
Two years after downgrading rigid polypropylene containers to “check locally,” a label system has returned the material to its previous status, determining at least 60% of the country has access to PP collection.
Legislators recently spoke about their challenges and successes with EPR legislation. | Banlai/Shutterstock
Four state-level elected officials who have worked on extended producer responsibility bills for packaging recently discussed how they became champions of recycling policy and offered tips to help advance legislation.
The industry-supported bills would establish a grant program and mandate better reporting. | Orhan Cam/Shutterstock
The U.S. Senate unanimously passed two bills that would improve rural recycling and composting accessibility as well as boost data collection, sending the legislation to the House for a vote.
O-I expects to install pollution control equipment at its Portland, Ore. bottle factory by April 2024. | Jared Paben/Resource Recycling, Inc.
Owens-Illinois will install pollution reduction equipment as part of a deal to keep operating its Portland, Ore. glass bottle factory. Meanwhile, the Quebec government will help O-I fund upgrades at its Montreal plant.
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