The hazardous waste control laws regulate the handling and management of hazardous materials and hazardous waste. Existing law requires the Department of Toxic Substances Control to list and to develop and adopt by regulation criteria and guidelines for the identification of hazardous wastes and extremely hazardous wastes, as provided. Existing law requires the department, when identifying such wastes, to consider the immediate or persistent toxic effects to man and wildlife and the resistance to natural degradation or detoxification of the wastes. Existing law exempts certain kinds of waste from regulation under the hazardous waste control laws under specified conditions. A violation of the hazardous waste control laws is a crime.
Existing law requires the Secretary for Environmental Protection to implement a unified hazardous waste and
hazardous materials management regulatory program, also known as the unified program. Existing law requires every county to apply to the secretary to be certified to implement the unified program, and authorizes a city or local agency that meets specified requirements to apply to the secretary to be certified to implement the unified program, as a certified unified program agency. Existing law requires the Department of Toxic Substances Control to develop and implement a comprehensive training, education, and enforcement program for, among others, certified unified program agencies to increase awareness of the requirements governing the determination on whether a waste is hazardous, as specified.
The California Integrated Waste Management Act of 1989, which is administered by the Department of Resources Recycling and Recovery, requires the department to identify and recommend actions to encourage the continued viability of the state’s organic waste processing and
recycling infrastructure, in partnership with specified agencies, including the Department of Food and Agriculture, as provided. The act defines “organic waste” for its purposes to mean food waste, green waste, landscape and pruning waste, nonhazardous wood waste, and food-soiled paper waste that is mixed in with food waste.
The Control, Regulate and Tax Adult Use of Marijuana Act of 2016 (AUMA), an initiative measure approved as Proposition 64 at the November 8, 2016, statewide general election, authorizes a person who obtains a state license to engage in commercial adult-use cannabis activity pursuant to that license and applicable local ordinances. The Medicinal and Adult-Use Cannabis Regulation and Safety Act (MAUCRSA), among other things, consolidates the licensure and regulation of commercial medicinal and adult-use cannabis activities. Under existing administrative law,
cannabis waste is a type of organic waste, and is required to be disposed of and otherwise managed under various specified methods.
This bill would require, on or before January 1, 2023, the Department of Toxic Substances Control, in consultation with the Department of Resources Recycling and Recovery and the Department of Food and Agriculture, to provide guidance to certified unified program agencies on how to characterize green cannabis waste, as defined, under the hazardous waste control laws and regulations. The bill would authorize the department to adopt regulations within its jurisdiction establishing management standards for cannabis waste as an alternative to the
requirements specified in the hazardous waste control laws and implementing regulations.