SECTION 1.
(a) The Legislature finds and declares all of the following:(1) It is the policy goal of the state that not less than 75 percent of solid waste generated be source reduced, recycled, or composted by the year 2020. However, the state’s recycling rate has dropped from 50 percent in 2007 to 44 percent in 2017.
(2) Exacerbating this challenge, beginning in 2018, the China National Sword policy further restricted the export and sale of recycled commodities, setting much stricter standards on contamination and banning the sale of bales of mixed commodities, like mixed-paper and mixed-plastics commodities, resulting in a 2018 statewide recycling rate of 40
percent, a rate California has been far above since the year 2000.
(3) The state is facing a recycling crisis, with high rates of contamination of collected recycled materials. To regain any value from the millions of tons of collected materials, recycling facilities must expand and upgrade their operations, resulting in higher processing costs to recover a lower volume of clean material that ultimately has a lower resale value, despite meeting a higher standard. At the same time, recycling facilities spend more moneys to receive lower revenue for recyclable commodities, and more material is being landfilled instead of recycled. This is directly related to the closure of nearly 1,000 recycling centers in the state since 2013, with more closures expected.
(4) Organic waste is the state’s largest source of methane and black carbon emissions, which are two of the most damaging
climate pollutants and also harm respiratory and cardiovascular health.
(5) Recycling organic waste is a priority for the state, which led the state to establish aggressive targets to reduce organic waste disposal in landfills and methane emissions produced from organic waste. However, California lacks sufficient infrastructure to meet those targets. The Department of Resources Recycling and Recovery (CalRecycle) estimates that the total cost to implement the statewide organic waste regulations established pursuant to Chapter 395 of the Statutes of 2016 is approximately $40 billion.
(6) These recent developments clearly demonstrate an immense gap between private sector investment and our significant need for in-state infrastructure to collect, transfer, process, clean, and sell both recyclable commodities and materials that are now considered organic waste. Tens of billions of
dollars are needed to place our state on a trajectory to meet our aggressive, but critically needed, climate, environmental, quality of life, and health and safety goals.
(7) Many new proven technologies can address these major challenges, and the Legislative Analyst’s Office has consistently reported, most recently in 2016, that funding for recycling and organic waste management is the most cost-effective method for reducing greenhouse gas emissions—as low as $4 per ton of greenhouse gas emissions reduced—while having the co-benefits of reducing other air pollutants and short lived climate pollutants, creating green jobs, and causing other improvements.
(8) Developing local infrastructure and domestic markets for recycled materials benefits the environment and the state’s economy and is critical due to the loss of access to foreign markets. Successfully achieving California’s
ambitious recycling and climate change goals requires partnerships and commitments from the state, local governments, the waste and recycling industry, and recycling and organic waste project developers. This bill provides critically needed seed funding to offset economic forces that create strong headwinds against such partnerships and commitments.
(b) It is the intent of the Legislature that this bill do all of the following:
(1) Improve California’s statewide recycling infrastructure to achieve the state’s greenhouse gas emission and solid and organic waste reduction goals established by Chapter 395 of the Statutes of 2016, Chapter 727 of the Statutes of 2014, and Chapter 476 of the Statutes of 2011.
(2) Improve existing, and create new, solid and organic waste recycling infrastructure to enable the state to
better and more effectively manage, reuse, and recycle its waste stream in state and to create additional jobs in the solid waste, recycling, and manufacturing sectors.
(3) Assist local governments in implementing their solid and organic waste programs to achieve the state’s greenhouse gas emission and solid and organic waste reduction goals.