BILL ANALYSIS Ó
AB 997
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Date of Hearing: April 13, 2015
ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON NATURAL RESOURCES
Das Williams, Chair
AB 997
(Travis Allen) - As Introduced February 26, 2015
SUBJECT: Recycling: plastic material
SUMMARY: Revises the state's 75% recycling goal to include
waste "used for power generation in dedicated anaerobic
digesters as well as in modern landfills capturing methane gas"
as recycling. Requires the Department of Resources Recycling
and Recovery (CalRecycle) to take specified actions to encourage
specified waste to energy (WTE) and waste to fuel (WTF)
technologies.
EXISTING LAW:
1)Establishes the California Integrated Waste Management Act of
1989, which:
a) Codifies the state's solid waste hierarchy, which
requires that waste management practices be promoted in the
following order:
i) Source reduction;
ii) Recycling and composting; and,
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iii) Environmentally safe transformation (i.e., WTE) and
environmentally safe land disposal, at the discretion of
the city or county.
b) Specifies a state policy goal that 75% of solid waste
generated be diverted from landfill disposal by 2020
through source reduction, recycling, or composting.
c) Requires each local jurisdiction to divert 50% of solid
waste from landfill disposal.
d) Establishes regulatory standards for facilities that
convert "engineered municipal solid waste" for energy
generation.
e) Defines "solid waste" as all putrescible and
nonputrescible solid, semisolid, and liquid wastes,
including garbage, trash, refuse, paper, rubbish, ashes,
industrial wastes, demolition and construction wastes,
abandoned vehicles and vehicle parts, discarded home and
industrial appliances, non-hazardous sewage, manure,
vegetable and animal solid and semisolid wastes, and other
discarded solid and semisolid wastes. Specifies that solid
waste does not include hazardous waste, radioactive waste,
and medical waste.
2)Requires CalRecycle to adopt regulations, as specified, for
permitting WTE and WTF facilities that process engineered
municipal solid waste (EMSW). Requires that the EMSW replaces
or supplants the use of fossil fuels and contains less than
25% moisture and noncombustible waste.
3)Establishes various plastic recycling requirements and
incentive programs, including:
a) Requires plastic trash bags sold in California to meet
specified recycled content requirements and report to
CalRecycle.
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b) Requires rigid plastic packaging containers, as defined,
to contain at least 25% postconsumer recycled content,
reach specified source reduction requirements, or be
reusable.
c) Establishes the at-store recycling program for plastic
bags, which requires specified stores to collect and
recycle plastic bags.
d) Specifies that CalRecycle may expend up to a specified
amount, currently $10 million, annually for market
development payments for empty plastic beverage containers
to processors (recyclers) and recycled-content product
manufacturers until January 1, 2017.
THIS BILL:
1)Revises the state policy goal that 75% of solid waste
generated be source reduced, recycled, or composted by the
year 2020 to allow solid waste that is "used for power
generation in dedicated anaerobic digesters as well as in
modern landfills capturing methane gas" to count as
recycling.
2)Requires CalRecycle to:
a) Investigate emerging technologies that convert used
plastic products into "new plastic feedstock and monomers."
b) By January 1, 2017, adopt regulations and protocols that
encourage WTE and WTF pyrolysis projects that "address
various grades of plastic products that are in landfills."
c) By January 1, 2017, and annually until January 1, 2020,
examine and report to the Legislature on possible
incentives for businesses and organizations that practice
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"state-of-the-art, cost-effective material separation and
recovery techniques, as well as those organizations that
are now commercially developing the most cost-effective
conversion of mixed plastic, textile, and fiber wastes to
fuels."
FISCAL EFFECT: Unknown
COMMENTS:
1)This bill. According to the author:
Plastics exist in far more grades, types, and sub-grades
than anyone realizes, and with very few exceptions, for
recycled plastics to be used as cost-effective drop-ins for
virgin materials requires complete separation from other
plastics, other grades of plastics, other product
components, contaminants and additives, etc. Separation
into the discrete, clean end-useable grades as described
above is near-impossible. [Emphasis in original.]
[This bill is intended to] refine and implement those
technologies that can derive the maximum value in CA at
minimum cost out of the majority of mixed plastics without
requiring separation.
2)California's 75% goal. AB 341 (Chesbro), Chapter 476,
Statutes of 2011 established a state policy goal that 75% of
California's solid waste be diverted from landfill disposal
through source reduction, recycling, or composting by 2020.
(CalRecycle regulations include anaerobic digestion as
composting.) To assist the state in reaching that goal and
achieving the state's greenhouse gas (GHG) reduction goal to
reach 1990 levels by 2020 established by AB 32 (Nunez),
Chapter 488, Statutes of 2006, AB 341 included the requirement
that commercial generators of solid waste arrange for
recycling services. California is currently diverting
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approximately 65% of solid waste from landfills.
AB 341 requires CalRecycle to adopt policies and incentives to
significantly increase recycling statewide. Since AB 341 was
adopted, CalRecycle launched The 75 Percent Initiative and
adopted a statewide strategy to reach the state's recycling
goal. Currently, CalRecycle has identified six areas of focus
for the initiative: 1) Moving organics out of landfills; 2)
Continuing to reform the beverage container recycling program;
3) Expanding the recycling and recycled-content manufacturing
infrastructure through streamlined permitting, compliance
assistance, and financing incentives; 4) Exploring new models
of state and local funding for materials management (for
recycling); 5) Promoting state procurement of recycled-content
products; and, 6) Promoting expanded producer responsibility.
3)The other 25%. Dwindling landfill capacity and the
infeasibility of siting and permitting new disposal sites have
created demand for technologies that generate energy and fuels
from municipal solid waste. Historically, "WTE" has been used
to describe traditional incineration. However, newer
technologies, broadly referred to as "conversion
technologies," process solid waste through chemical,
biological, or other non-combustion thermal technologies to
produce electricity or renewable fuels. These technologies
create energy using three main processes: thermochemical,
biochemical, and physicochemical.
Thermochemical conversion processes include high-heat
technologies like gasification and pyrolysis. Thermochemical
conversion is characterized by higher temperatures and faster
conversion rates. It is best suited for lower moisture
feedstocks. Thermochemical routes can convert the entire
organic portion of suitable feedstocks. The inorganic
fraction (ash) does not contribute to the energy products and
may contribute to fouling of high temperature equipment and
increased nutrient loading in wastewater treatment and
disposal facilities. Generally the ash must be disposed.
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Inorganic constituents may also accelerate some of the
conversion reactions. Under current law, pyrolysis is
considered transformation, while gasification is explicitly
excluded from the definition of transformation.
Biochemical conversion processes include aerobic conversion
(i.e., composting), anaerobic digestion, which is currently
regulated as composting, and anaerobic fermentation (for
example, the conversion of sugars from cellulose to ethanol).
Biochemical conversion processes use lower temperatures and
lower reaction rates. Higher moisture feedstocks are
generally good candidates for biochemical processes. The
lignin fraction of biomass cannot be converted by anaerobic
biochemical means and only very slowly through aerobic
decomposition. As a consequence, a significant fraction of
woody and some other fibrous feedstocks exits the process as a
residue that may or may not have market value as a soil
amendment. The residue can be composted.
Physiochemical conversion involves the physical and chemical
synthesis of products from feedstocks (for example, biodiesel
from waste fats, oils, and grease) and is primarily associated
with the transformation of fresh or used vegetable oils,
animal fats, greases, tallow, and other suitable feedstocks
into liquid fuels or biodiesel.
4)Concerns with conversion. While low-temperature biochemical
conversion (i.e., anaerobic digestion and composting of
organic materials) have been widely accepted in California and
are already considered recycling, higher heat conversion
technologies have not been widely accepted as environmentally
safe alternatives to landfilling. There have been some pilot
and bench scale projects in California and in other parts of
the United States, but significant questions remain about the
costs, track records, and relevant emissions data from
facilities that use feedstocks comparable to California.
In response to increasing interest in pursuing WTE options for
the remaining 25% of the waste stream and materials that
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cannot be recycled, AB 1126 (Gordon), Chapter 411, Statutes of
2013 established permitting requirements for conversion
facilities that process EMSW, which may include plastic. The
CalRecycle process is being developed to ensure that
recyclable materials are removed from mixed solid waste prior
to being converted for energy or fuels.
This bill would require CalRecycle to adopt "regulations and
protocols that encourage WTE and WTF pyrolysis projects that
address the various grades of plastic products that are in
landfills." It is not clear why the bill limits the scope of
WTF projects to pyrolysis. This provision is inconsistent
with the state's goal of limiting WTE and WTF projects to
those that process solid waste from which recyclables have
been removed.
5)Managing plastic. Plastic comprises 9.6% of the total
disposed waste stream in California. For comparison, organic
waste comprises 32.4%, "inert and other" comprises 29.1%, and
paper comprises 17.3%.
According to the author, "for the majority of plastics,
cost-effective recycling is difficult if not impossible." In
2011, the American Chemistry Council released the 2009
National Report on Postconsumer Non-Bottle Rigid Plastic
Recycling, which found that between 2007 and 2009, domestic
recycling of plastic increased 47%, from 121 million pounds to
over 243 million pounds. In 2008 and 2009, North America
began recycling more plastic than it exported. According to
the report, "non-bottle rigid plastic is sold in a variety of
single-resin and mixed-resin categories. The value placed on
most mixed-resin bales is dependent on the likely percentage
of polyolefin plastics in the bale: higher percentages of
polyolefin (polyethylene and polypropylene) generally are in
higher demand." Recycling plastic is feasible and does occur
on a large scale throughout the United States.
6)Previous legislation. This bill is similar to AB 2633
(Allen), introduced last year; however, AB 2633 did not
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include the requirement that waste disposed of in a solid
waste landfill be counted as recycling if the landfill has a
methane capture system. AB 2633 failed passage in this
committee on a vote of 3-5.
REGISTERED SUPPORT / OPPOSITION:
Support
None on file
Opposition
Californians Against Waste
Clean Water Action
Coalition for Clean Air
Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives
Sierra Club California
Analysis Prepared by:Elizabeth MacMillan / NAT. RES. / (916)
AB 997
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319-2092