There are a number of bills in the California State Legislature aiming to address the plastic pollution crisis. Recently, I spent the day lobbying in Sacramento for one of the larger ones SB54/AB1080 (California Circular Economy and Plastic Pollution Reduction Act) and talked about what happens in lobby meetings in my last blog post “How Lobby Meetings Work”. Now, I want to dive into some of these bills to explain the multiple approaches our state lawmakers are using to address the plague of plastic pollution. If you don’t live in California, set up a meeting with your state representative and ask why they aren’t considering these measures!

SB54/AB1080 – California Circular Economy and Plastic Pollution Reduction Act. This bill would set a target goal for the state of California to reduce waste from plastic by 75% by 2030. By 2030, the majority of the top ten most littered items would have to be made from compostable or recyclable materials. For more information check out this video by @kolossaloceans.

AB619 – Retail food: reusable containers: multiuse utensils. This was signed into law earlier this year and will take effect in January 2020. The law clarifies the current health code to allow customers to bring their food containers into a restaurant to be filled. Similar to how you can bring your reusable coffee cup to get coffee, this would allow customers to bring their own to-go containers to get food to-go. You can already do this, but the food code is vague and oftentimes restaurants refuse this request because they are unsure of how to handle it or think it violates the food code.

AB1162 – Lodging establishments: personal care products: small plastic bottles. This bill would prohibit hotels from providing those tiny little toiletry bottles by 2023. This will include shampoo, conditioner, and shower gel. Smaller hotels with less than 50 rooms would have until 2024 to comply. Many hotels, most notably Marriott, have already switched to wall-mounted full-sized bottles!

AB792 – Recycling: plastic containers: minimum recycled content and labeling. This bill would increase the minimum amount of post-recycled material in plastic beverage bottles over time resulting in a minimum of 75% recycled material by 2035. This is important because we need to ensure there is a market for recycled materials. Currently, it is much cheaper to use virgin plastic than recycled plastic, so it’s no longer profitable to recycle plastic.

AB1718 – State parks: state coastal beaches: smoking ban. This bill as the title suggests, would ban smoking at state coastal beaches. Why am I adding this to my plastic pollution bill list? Good question! Cigarettes have a tiny plastic filter in them and they are one of the most commonly found items during beach clean-ups.

AB1583 – The California Recycling Market Development Act. This bill would clarify the chasing arrows resin code on plastics which many people think means the product is recyclable when it actually just identifies the type of plastic the product is made of. In addition, the bill would required the Department of Resources Recycling and Recovery to convene a commission to recommend market development and waste reduction policies.

In the past we have seen legislation targeting the most problematic items such as plastic bags and straws. While hotel shampoo bottles and cigarette butts are great additions to the ban list, our lawmakers understand that we can’t keep moving incrementally by banning single items. We need big picture/large-scale legislation to stop the tide of plastic pollution and these bills are a great start! All the bills mentioned above are nearing the finish line. So, find your state representative and call, email, or tweet, and let them know you support these measures!

What else do you want to see our lawmakers doing to stop plastic pollution? Leave a comment and tell me!