California lawmakers fail to pass bills to phase out single-use plastics

California lawmakers failed to pass bills that would have made their state the first in the U.S. to partially phase out single-use containers.

Two bills going through the California legislature that would have enacted the strongest plastic pollution rules in the U.S. – Senate Bill (SB) 54 and companion legislation Assembly Bill (AB) 1080 – both failed to pass during the legislative session ended in mid-September, and were sent to the “inactive file.”

The bills sought to eliminate 75 per cent of single-use containers in the state by 2030.

Both are eligible to be reconsidered next year.

The bills were opposed by a range of industry associations, including the Plastics Industry Association and the Grocery Manufacturers Association, as well as waste management industries such as Athens Services and the California Refuse Recycling Council, and members of the agriculture and glass manufacturing industries.

“We remain opposed because we think there are some fundamental flaws in the bill which would prevent it from being implemented,” Shannon Crawford, executive director of state government affairs for the Plastics Industry Association, said in an LA Times report on the two bills.

California lawmakers did pass two recycling bills before the session ended: AB 54 and AB 792. AB 54 provides US$10 million to assist recycling centres across the state, and AB 792 reduces the allowable amount of virgin plastics in beverage containers to 50 per cent by 2030.