A federal judge has halted California’s “Truth in Recycling” law, which aims to reduce consumer confusion about which packaging can be recycled.
California’s recyclable packaging law prohibits manufacturers from using the “bullet chase” recycling symbol on products or materials unless they are actually recycled in a meaningful way, the law specifies. The bill was signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom in 2021 and was to begin work on October 4.
A coalition of farmers, forestry, restaurant and packaging organizations sued the state in March, saying the law violated their right to free speech. They argue that Senate Bill 343 acts as a “government-imposed check.”
Judge William Hayes agreed that their challenge had merit, and on Tuesday ordered California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta, the defendant in this case, to stop the implementation of the law “until the order of the Court.”
Industry trade groups, including the Dairy Institute of California, the Flexible Packaging Assn. and the Western Growers Assn., applauded the decision.
The coalition “will continue to insist that California can strengthen recycling without scrutinizing the facts on packaging and without adding unnecessary and significant costs to California families and businesses,” Californians for Affordable Packaging said in a statement.
“The decision is an important win, not only for our members, but for all businesses that want to provide consumers with accurate information about the products they buy,” said Julie Landry, vice president of government affairs at the American Forest & Paper Assn. “The court recognized what we have said from the beginning: California cannot remedy consumer confusion by limiting factual speech.”
Advocates for reducing plastic use disagree.
“The court made a mistake, and I’m sure the state will prevail in the end,” said Nick Lapis, executive director of Californians Against Waste. “SB 343 does not violate the First Amendment; it requires companies to tell the truth when they make recycling claims. To suggest that the First Amendment protects misleading environmental advertising is inconsistent with basic consumer protection principles that California has used for decades.”
In January, CalRecycle, the state’s waste agency, released a report showing that less than 10% of most single-use plastics in the state were being recycled.
Even yogurt containers and margarine containers — made from the ubiquitous polypropylene, or #5 plastic — are recycled at a rate of only 2% in the state, the report said. Only 5 percent of colored shampoo and detergent bottles, made of polyethylene, or #1 plastic, are recycled.
Reports of extremely low recycling rates for milk cartons and polystyrene were widely shared even before that.
Plastics that cannot be recycled are often sent to landfills or sometimes smuggled overseas, where they are incinerated or end up in landfills, rivers and streams.
A report by the Natural Resources Defense Council shows that nationwide, taxpayers, governments and businesses spend between $9.8 billion and $13.3 billion a year cleaning up plastic waste, and about $3 billion is spent by local governments on plastic landfills.
In accordance with analyzing one situation2.9 million tons of single-use plastic and 171.4 billion single-use plastic parts were sold, offered for sale or distributed in California by 2023.
Single-use plastics, and plastic waste more broadly, are considered a growing environmental and health problem. In recent decades, plastic waste you are frustrated water and seassickening and threatening marine life human health.
“It’s a bad decision that denies consumers the basic information they need to make informed decisions,” said Judith Enck, former regional director of the Environmental Protection Agency and president of the nonprofit organization Beyond Plastics. “Given the plastics industry’s long history of deceiving the public about plastics recycling, this is a devastating result. It’s a reminder that the plastics industry has enough money to fight even modest policy designed to protect people and the planet.”
