Update! This just passed! Newsom just signed “nation’s most sweeping law to phase out single-use plastics and packaging waste.” Thanks, callers!
(This video was created a couple of years ago for an earlier version of SB-54. That doesn’t change a thing.)
California is addicted to single-use plastic, even though we know that it’s harming us, our wildlife and our environment. Previous legislative interventions have been tabled or failed to pass in 2019, 2020 and 2021 due to fights between competing interests.
Action: Let’s get this done. It’s passed the CA Senate and now has to get through the Assembly by June 30.
Minimal script: I’m calling from [zip code]and I want Assemblymember [___] to vote “YES” on SB-54 – the plastics and solid waste bill on the Assembly floor this week!
Note to our callers: Please be particularly kind to the legislative staffers who are answering phones, due to the verbal abuse they are getting from opponents to the abortion protection bills that are passing through right now. They have a really hard job. Tell them that you appreciate what they do.
Contact:
- State Assemblymember Steve Bennet (CA-37): email, SAC (916) 319-2037, SB (805) 564-1649, VTA (805) 641-3700
- State Assemblymember Jacqui Irwin (CA-44): email, SAC (916) 319-2044, CAM (805) 482-1904, OX (805) 483-4488
- Not your people? Which assemblymember is yours?: findyourrep.legislature.ca.gov.
Deeper Dive
This year’s version of SB 54 would:
- create an extended producer responsibility program for printed paper and plastic packaging. A producer responsibility organization would be responsible for collection and recycling with oversight from the state.
- require a 25% reduction in single-use plastic packaging and foodservice products by 2032,
- require a 65% recycling rate by that date.
- require that at least 10% of the source-reduction efforts would need to be achieved through eliminating single-use plastic, with 4% specifically though reuse or refill systems.
- include eco-modulated fees, meaning producers could pay a penalty for using hard-to-recycle or hazardous materials in their packaging or get a credit for using more sustainable, right-sized or reusable packaging.
- have an environmental justice aspect that sets up a plastic pollution “mitigation fund” to address existing and historical environmental and health impacts caused by plastic pollution.
- would provide $500 million a year over 10 years, with 60% going to projects in disadvantaged, low-income and rural communities.
- provides directives to avoid disproportionate impacts on disadvantaged and low-income communities when creating and implementing regulations.
For more information, please see the text of the bill and a fact sheet from The Nature Conservancy.
INDIVISIBLE VENTURA 