The mission of Californians Against Waste is to conserve resources, prevent pollution and protect California’s environment through the development, promotion, and implementation of waste reduction and recycling policies and programs.

Founded in 1977, Californians Against Waste is a non-profit environmental research and advocacy organization that identifies, develops, promotes and monitors policy solutions to pollution and conservation problems posing a threat to public health and the environment. Californians Against Waste's history has demonstrated it to be the nation's oldest, largest and most effective non-profit environmental organization advocating for the implementation of waste reduction and recycling policies and programs.

Californians Against Waste believes that when manufacturers are required to internalize the environmental externalities (costs) of material extraction, processing and manufacturing pollution, and end-of-life waste management in a product price, the market-place motivates them to reduce consumption, replace virgin resources with recycled materials, reduce toxicity and waste, design for maximum life and recyclability, and generally improve sustainability. This concept of Producer Responsibility lies at the root of virtually every legislative policy that CAW has pursued for the last 42 years.