California's Plan For A Zero Waste Economy

California's Draft Zero Waste Plan (the Draft Plan) lays out an ambitious strategy to eliminate waste and transform material use, reuse, and management across the state. For businesses—including manufacturers, retailers, packaging companies, and food service providers—the message from the Department of Resources Recycling and Recovery (CalRecycle) is clear: the future is circular.

Signaling a new era of shared accountability for the full lifecycle of products, the Draft Plan pushes broad, systemic change across industries and supply chains and would apply to a broad range of materials. The Draft Plan seeks to maximize the highest and best use of materials and products before they are managed as "waste." On a high level, it calls for eliminating waste at the design, sourcing, manufacturing, and distribution stages; keeping existing materials and products in use for as long as possible; and responsibly recycling remaining materials. In doing so, it sets the stage for