BILL ANALYSIS Ó
SENATE COMMITTEE ON ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY
Senator Wieckowski, Chair
2015 - 2016 Regular
Bill No: AB 2396
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|Author: |McCarty |
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|Version: |4/13/2016 |Hearing |June 8, 2016 |
| | |Date: | |
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|Urgency: |No |Fiscal: |Yes |
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|Consultant:|Joanne Roy |
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SUBJECT: Solid waste: annual reports.
ANALYSIS:
Existing law, pursuant to the Integrated Waste Management Act of
1989 (Public Resources Code (PRC) §40000 et seq.):
1)Establishes a statewide diversion goal of 75% by 2020.
2)Requires state agencies to develop an integrated waste management
plan on how the state agency or facility will divert 50% of its
waste from landfill disposal by 2004; and requires each state
agency to submit an annual report to the Department of Resources
Recycling and Recovery (CalRecycle) summarizing its progress in
reducing solid waste.
3)Requires local agencies to divert, through source reduction,
recycling, and composting, 50% of solid waste disposed by their
jurisdictions.
4)Requires each jurisdiction to submit a countywide siting element
(CSE) to CalRecycle that includes: a statement of goals for the
environmentally safe transformation and disposal of solid waste;
an estimate of the total transformation or disposal capacity
necessary for a 15-year period; the remaining capacity of existing
solid waste facilities; identification of areas for the location
of new solid waste facilities that are consistent with the general
plan if the county determines that existing capacity will be
exhausted within 15 years, or as specified; and, for CSEs
submitted after 2003, a description of the actions taken to
AB 2396 (McCarty) Page 2 of ?
solicit public participation by the affected communities.
5)Requires local governments to include organic waste recycling
facilities in the planning requirements for CSEs.
6)Requires commercial waste generators to arrange for recycling
services and requires local governments to implement commercial
solid waste programs designed to divert solid waste from
businesses (including public entities).
This bill requires state agencies to include information relating to
recycling of solid and organic wastes in their annual reports to
CalRecycle.
Background
1) Statewide waste diversion goals. CalRecycle is tasked with
diverting at least 75% of solid waste statewide by 2020.
Currently, an estimated 35 million tons of waste are disposed of
in California's landfills annually, of which 32% is compostable
organic materials, 29% is construction and demolition debris, and
17% is paper.
In addition, CalRecycle is charged with implementing Strategic
Directive 6.1, which calls for reducing organic waste disposal by
50% by 2020. According to CalRecycle, significant gains in
organic waste diversion (through recycling technologies of
organic waste, including composting and anaerobic digestion) are
necessary to meet the 75% goal and to implement Strategic
Directive 6.1.
2) Mandatory Commercial Recycling. According to CalRecycle's
Statewide Waste Characterization data (2008), the commercial
sector generates nearly three fourths of the solid waste in
California; and, much of the commercial sector waste disposed in
landfills is readily recyclable. Increasing the recovery of
recyclable materials will directly reduce greenhouse gas (GHG)
emissions. In particular, recycled materials can reduce the GHG
emissions from multiple phases of product production, including
extraction of raw materials, preprocessing and manufacturing. A
cobenefit of increased recycling is avoided methane emissions at
landfills from the decomposition of organic materials.
AB 341 (Chesbro, Chapter 476, Statutes of 2011) sets forth the
requirements of the statewide mandatory commercial recycling
AB 2396 (McCarty) Page 3 of ?
program, which has the purpose of reducing GHG emissions by
diverting commercial solid waste to recycling efforts and to
expand the opportunity for additional recycling services and
recycling manufacturing facilities in California.
3) Recycling organic waste. For purposes of recycling, "organic
waste" is defined as food waste, green waste, landscape and
pruning waste, nonhazardous wood waste, and food-soiled paper
waste that is mixed in with food waste. Organic material
represents about one-third of the solid waste sent to landfills
even though a large percentage can be recycled or composted.
Recycling technologies for organic waste include composting,
anaerobic digestion, and other types of processing that generate
renewable fuels, energy, soil amendments, and mulch. Anaerobic
digestion, which produces biogas that can be processed into
biomethane fuel, is particularly suited to handle food waste.
Green waste is more efficiently processed through composting. In
addition to improving the quality of soil, compost prevents soil
erosion, reduces the need for chemical fertilizers, herbicides,
and pesticides, and enables better soil water retention.
4) Waste reduction and GHGs. According to the California Air
Resources Board (ARB), a total reduction of 80 million metric
tons (MMT), or 16% compared to business as usual, is necessary to
reduce statewide GHG emissions to 1990 levels by 2020. ARB
intends to achieve approximately 78% of the reductions through
direct regulations. ARB proposes to achieve the balance of
reductions necessary to meet the 2020 limit (approximately 18
MMT) through its cap-and-trade program.
Landfill gas is generated by the anaerobic decomposition of organic
materials such as food, paper, wood, and green material. Fifty
percent of landfill gas is methane, a GHG with a much shorter
life, but much higher global warming potential than carbon
dioxide (methane is approximately 25 times more efficient at
trapping heat than carbon dioxide over a 100-year time span).
Depending on the types of solid waste, the chemical makeup of
landfill biogas can vary greatly from the biogas produced from
dairy farms, municipal solid waste, and wastewater treatment
facilities. While most modern landfills have systems in place to
capture methane, significant amounts continue to escape into the
atmosphere. According to ARB's GHG inventory, approximately 7
million tons of carbon dioxide equivalent are released annually
by landfills. That number is expected to increase to 8.5 million
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tons of carbon dioxide equivalent by 2020.
Composting and other organics processing technologies, including
anaerobic digestion, reduce GHGs by avoiding the emissions that
would be generated by the material's decomposition in a landfill.
For example, in the case of anaerobic digestion, the process
produces methane from the organic waste in a controlled
environment for use as a renewable fuel, and results in climate
benefits by both reducing GHGs from landfills, and displacing
fossil fuels. Recycling organic waste provides significant GHG
reductions over landfilling.
According to CalRecycle, Mandatory Commercial Recycling was one of
the measures adopted in the Scoping Plan by the Air Resources
Board pursuant to the California Global Warming Solutions Act.
The Mandatory Commercial Recycling Measure focuses on increased
commercial waste diversion as a method to reduce GHG emissions
and is designed to achieve a reduction in GHG emissions of 5
million metric tons of CO2 equivalents. To achieve the measure's
objective, an additional 2 to 3 million tons of materials
annually will need to be recycled from the commercial sector by
the year 2020 and beyond.
Comments
Purpose of Bill. According to the author, "This bill will ensure
that the government of California joins our counties by including
summaries of state agency efforts regarding organic waste diversion
when submitting their reports about recycling compliance. With the
legislature's ambitious goal to reduce greenhouse gas emission to
1990 levels by 2020, we need to know how our agencies contribute to
meeting this goal by diverting greenhouse gas-producing waste."
Related/Prior Legislation
AB 876 (McCarty, Chapter 593, Statutes of 2015) required local
governments to include organic waste recycling facilities in the
existing planning requirements for countywide solid waste
management.
AB 1045 (Irwin, Chapter 596, Statutes of 2015) required the
California Environmental Protection Agency to establish policies to
encourage recycling of organic waste and coordinate the oversight
and regulation of organic waste recycling facilities.
AB 2396 (McCarty) Page 5 of ?
AB 1826 (Chesbro, Chapter 727, Statutes of 2014) phased in
requirements for generators of specified amounts of organic waste to
arrange recycling services for that material beginning January 1,
2016, through January 1, 2019.
AB 341 (Chesbro, Chapter 476, Statutes of 2011) required local
businesses and multifamily residential dwellings of five or more
units that generate more than four cubic yards of solid waste per
week to separate recyclable materials from solid waste and subscribe
to a basic level of recycling service that included collection,
self-hauling, or other arrangements for the pickup of the recyclable
materials or subscribe to a recycling service that may include mixed
waste processing that yields diversion results comparable to source
separation.
SOURCE: Author
SUPPORT:
Los Angeles County Solid Waste Management Committee/Integrated Waste
Management Task Force
OPPOSITION:
None received
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