Want to understand CalRecycle's chemical recycling rules? You'll need to pay

Los Angeles Times

30-05-2025

Sacramento — Want to know what constitutes an acceptable form of recycling in California under CalRecycle's new draft guidelines for the state's landmark plastic waste law?
It'll cost you roughly $187, and even then you may not find your answer.
The issue arose this week when CalRecycle held a Sacramento workshop on its proposed regulations to implement Senate Bill 54, the 2022 law designed to reduce California's single-use plastic waste.
In the regulations' latest iteration, the agency declared that it will only consider recycling technologies that follow standards issued by the International Organization for Standardization, or ISO, the Geneva-based group that sets standards for a variety of industries, including healthcare and transportation.
According to the draft regulations: 'A facility's use of a technology that is not a mechanical recycling technology ... shall not be considered recycling unless the facility operates in a manner consistent with ISO 59014:2024.'
To access ISO 59014:2024, one must purchase the report for about $187.
That's not fair, said Nick Lapis, director of advocacy for Californians Against Waste. 'Copies of those ISO standards should be publicly available,' he said.
Lapis and others also noted that the law, as written, expressly prohibits chemical and nonmechanical forms of recycling.
Officials at CalRecycle, also known as the California Department of Resources Recycling and Recovery, didn't respond to the criticism or to questions from The Times.
ISO 59014:2024 turns out to be a 38-page report titled 'Environmental management and circular economy — Sustainability and traceability of the recovery of secondary materials — Principles, requirements and guidance.'
A copy of the report reviewed by The Times offered no specifics on recycling technologies, or information about the operation of a recycling plant.
The word 'recycling' is only used five times in the 'Annex,' a 13-page supplementary section of the report. And there it is mentioned only in the context of establishing definitions or examples of 'organizations engaged in the recovery of secondary materials' or 'collection system types.'
For instance, 'Commercial waste and recycling companies' are listed as examples of a type of organization that collects waste. Other waste collectors, according to the report, include municipalities, retailers and reuse organizations such as nonprofit reuse operators.
'The draft calls on aligning facilities with this ISO standard,' said Monica Wilson, senior director of global programs at the Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives. 'That ISO standard is not about recycling. It's not about chemical recycling, it's just not an appropriate comparison for us to be referring to.'
Lapis also found the report hard to decipher.
'Maybe I should go back and look at it again, but it'd be helpful if you're citing ISO standards ... that you identify what parts' are being cited, he said.
Karen Kayfetz, chief of CalRecycle's Product Stewardship branch, didn't respond to questions or concerns about the inclusion of a report that is not freely available to the public to review.
During this week's workshop, she said the agency's use of the ISO standard 'is not meant ... to be a measure of whether you are recycling, but rather just one of multiple criteria that an entity needs to be measured against.'
She said the SB 54 statute requires that CalRecycle exclude recycling technologies that produce significant amounts of hazardous waste and tasks the agency with considering environmental and public health impacts of these technologies.
'The ISO standard for the operation of facilities does address some of the best practices that would help to ameliorate and measure those impacts. ... It is meant to be one of multiple criteria that can be utilized as a measure and to help set a floor but not a ceiling,' she said.
Ana Ferreira, a spokeswoman for the Wine Institute, which represents more than 1,000 wineries and affiliates across the state, was among those with no complaints about the proposed new regulations.
'We believe it incorporates common-sense changes that would reduce costs and ensure that products are appropriately recycled,' Ferreira said.
Tina Andolina, the chief of staff for state Sen. Ben Allen (D-Santa Monica), SB 54's author, said the inclusion of the report and other items in the draft regulations suggests that CalRecycle is considering how to manage these polluting technologies — instead of forbidding them, as the law requires.
'The regulations unlawfully shift the standard from the production of hazardous waste as required by the statute to its management,' she said, reading from a letter Allen had written to the staff.
Anja Brandon, director of plastic policy at the Ocean Conservancy, added that along with not being freely available, the ISO standard 'does not satisfy SB 54's requirements to exclude the most hazardous technologies and to minimize the generation of hazardous waste and environmental, environmental justice and public health impacts.'
SB 54, which was signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom in 2022, requires that by 2032, 100% of single-use packaging and plastic food ware produced or sold in the state must be recyclable or compostable, that 65% of it can be recycled, and that the total volume is reduced by 25%.
The law was written to address the mounting issue of plastic pollution in the environment and the growing number of studies showing the ubiquity of microplastic pollution in the human body — such as in the brain, blood, heart tissue, testicles, lungs and various other organs.
Last March, after nearly three years of negotiations among various corporate, environmental, waste, recycling and health stakeholders, CalRecycle drafted a set of finalized regulations designed to implement the single-use plastic producer responsibility program under SB 54.
But as the deadline for implementation approached, industries that would be affected by the regulations including plastic producers and packaging companies — represented by the California Chamber of Commerce and the Circular Action Alliance — began lobbying the governor, complaining that the regulations were poorly developed and might ultimately increase costs for California taxpayers.Newsom allowed the regulations to expire and told CalRecycle that it needed to start the process over.
These new draft regulations are the agency's latest attempt at issuing guidelines by which the law can be implemented.