Is Momentum Building To Change The Way We Manage Plastic?

There has been a reasonable amount of recent activity related to management (or lack thereof) of plastic waste. Two more developments this month have me wondering whether we might be near the proverbial tipping point in our approach to managing plastics.

First, California enacted a fairly sweeping statute, S.B. 54, that will impose extended producer responsibility requirements on producers of plastics. The statute has at least three significant pieces: (1) a requirement to increase the percentage of single-use packaging that is recycled, reused, or composted to 65% by 2032; (2) imposition of significant taxes, $5 billion over the next ten years, to fund efforts to address plastic pollution; and (3) the creation of "producer responsibility organizations", which will establish "producer responsibility plans ... for the source reduction, collection, processing, and recycling of covered material." Producers will not be permitted to sell covered materials unless the PRO