BAKERSFIELD, Calif. (KERO) — The law aims to reduce single-use plastic waste, making all single-use plastic packaging recyclable or compostable by 2032.
- SB 54, signed in 2022, went into effect on January 1, 2025.
- The bill focuses on making single-use plastics recyclable and reducing their use.
- A staggered approach aims to recycle 65% of single-use plastic and 100% recyclable or compostable packaging by 2032.
- Senator Ben Allen emphasizes the bill is about making products sustainable, not banning them.
For your convenience, the skimmable summary above is generated with the assistance of AI and fact checked by our team prior to publication. Read the full story as originally reported below.
Broadcast transcript:
New Year's Day is a landmark, for some: the starting point of new habits, for others: another signification the holiday season is over, but for all in California, it signifies new laws going into place. I'm Sam Hoyle, your Shafter/Wasco neighborhood reporter, Senate Bill 54 focused on Single-Use Plastics was signed during the 2021-22 legislative session and went into effect on Wednesday.
According to Cal Recycle, "Packaging makes up over 50% of what we dump in California landfills by volume" and "Californians throw away 290 Olympic pools worth of plastic a day." The focus of the bill is to reduce single-use packaging waste and "ensure it is recycled to meet our state's recycling and climate goals," by pushing producers of the products to make them as easy to recycle as possible, with a focus on styrofoam's ability to be recycled, but a lack of availability for it to be recycled.
When looking at the city of Bakersfield's recyclable list, styrofoam is listed as something that goes in the trash can, not the blue recycle bin. That's because Kern County does not have protocols in place to recycle styrofoam. According to DART/SOLO, a popular food ware brand that produces styrofoam cups, APTCO off of the 99 and Pond Road near McFarland collects and recycles styrofoam.
While the law went into effect on Wednesday, it features a staggered approach with a target of 65% recycled single-use plastic, 25% less being sold, and 100% of packaging and single-use plastic food ware being recyclable or compostable by 2032.
The bill, authored by Ben Allen, a state senator whose district covers part of LA county, said in a statement to 23ABC: "We provided a multi-tiered deadline with ramped-up recycling rates for different products in order to ease into this new way of supplying and consuming in California. This is not about banning products; this is about ensuring the products in our market meet the needs of our communities by ensuring they are truly recyclable and sustainable. This first recyclability benchmark for polystyrene is an important step for us to showcase the market's ability to thrive in a more sustainable manner."
One thing to note with this bill as well is you'll likely be seeing less polystyrene, more commonly known as styrofoam, whether it be cups or food boxes. In Shafter/Wasco, SH, your neighborhood reporter.
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