California Forges Ahead with Mandatory Recycled Content for Plastic Bottles

SEATTLE (Scrap Monster): The lawmakers in California have approved a legislation that mandates use of recycled plastic by beverage companies. If signed into law, the bill would be the first of its kind for plastic bottles in the entire U.S. The final approval to the bill was received on August 30^th.

In accordance with the provisions of Assemble Bill 793, all plastic bottles covered by the state’s container redemption program must average a minimum of 15% post-consumer resin content by 2022. The mandatory recycling content requirement will go higher to at least 25% by 2025 and 50% by 2030.

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The manufacturers who fail to abide by the requirement will be liable to pay penalty, which will be calculated as 20 cents for each pound of PCR that they fall short by. The legislation also notes that the money collected as penalty will be deposited into a new account “Recycling Enhancement Penalty Account”, which in turn will be utilized towards recycling awareness, infrastructure development for collection and processing of plastic beverage bottles.

The passage of the bill was welcomed by Steve Alexander, president and CEO of the Association of Plastic Recyclers (APR). Furthermore, it called for extension of minimum mandate requirement for all plastic packaging.