California mulls law on minimum recycled plastic content in bottles

LOS ANGELES (Scrap Monster): The California lawmakers are considering two separate legislations that would fix a minimum recycled plastic content in bottles. The legislations propose that beverage companies must compulsorily use at least 10% recycled plastic content in their bottles. Only companies that satisfy this norm will be eligible to receive discounts on fees paid to the state.

The amended Senate Bill 732 would require every manufacturer of a beverage sold in a plastic beverage container to demonstrate to the Department of Resources Recycling and Recovery that each type of plastic beverage container sold in this state contains, on average, not less than 10 percent postfilled material. The bill, sponsored by the environmental group ‘Californians Against Waste’ will be applicable to all resins. Under the Senate bill, the recycled content target has to be achieved in order to continue receiving discounts from the State. The bill is applicable to containers produced out of the State also.

A second legislation is also under the consideration of Assembly Committee. The Assembly Bill 1447 require every manufacturer of PET plastic packaging for sale in the state to include a minimum of 10% of postfilled PET plastic in its PET plastic packaging, on and after July 1, 2016. The bill would extend the existing 35% recycled content requirement on glass containers to include manufacturers who import glass from outside of the state for filling. The bill is expected to come before the Assembly’s Natural Resource Committee on April 27^th.

As per estimates, the average recycled content for PET packaging by Coca-Cola averages around 6%, whereas those by PepsiCo averages around 10% currently. According to Nestle, almost 5 of its brands use recycled content in the range from 50% to 100%. The state wide average recycled content for containers is unavailable.