BILL ANALYSIS Ó
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|SENATE RULES COMMITTEE | AB 2396|
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THIRD READING
Bill No: AB 2396
Author: McCarty (D)
Amended: 8/9/16 in Senate
Vote: 21
SENATE ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY COMMITTEE: 6-0, 6/8/16
AYES: Wieckowski, Gaines, Bates, Hill, Leno, Pavley
NO VOTE RECORDED: Jackson
SENATE APPROPRIATIONS COMMITTEE: 7-0, 6/20/16
AYES: Lara, Bates, Beall, Hill, McGuire, Mendoza, Nielsen
ASSEMBLY FLOOR: 79-0, 5/5/16 (Consent) - See last page for
vote
SUBJECT: Solid waste: annual reports
SOURCE: Author
DIGEST: This bill requires state agencies to include
information relating to commercial recycling and organic waste
recycling in their annual reports to the Department of Resources
Recycling and Recovery (CalRecycle).
Senate Floor Amendments of 8/9/16 address potential chaptering
out issue with AB 2812 (Gordon).
ANALYSIS: Existing law, pursuant to the Integrated Waste
Management Act of 1989 (Public Resources Code (PRC) §40000 et
seq.):
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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
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 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.
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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
program, which has the purpose of reducing GHG emissions by
diverting commercial solid waste to recycling efforts and to
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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. 50% 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
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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 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 MMT of CO2 equivalents. To achieve the
Measure's objective, an additional two to three 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
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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 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
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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.
FISCAL EFFECT: Appropriation: No Fiscal
Com.:YesLocal: No
According to the Senate Appropriations Committee, minor
additional state costs. State agencies are already required to
report annually to CalRecycle on their waste diversion programs.
This bill clarifies that mandatory commercial recycling and
mandatory organics are a part of the waste diversion programs
that agencies must include in their annual reports.
SUPPORT: (Verified8/9/16)
Los Angeles County Solid Waste Management/Integrated Waste
Management Task Force
Northern California Recycling Association
Solid Waste Association of North America
OPPOSITION: (Verified8/9/16)
None received
ASSEMBLY FLOOR: 79-0, 5/5/16
AYES: Achadjian, Alejo, Travis Allen, Arambula, Atkins, Baker,
Bigelow, Bloom, Bonilla, Bonta, Brough, Brown, Burke,
Calderon, Campos, Chang, Chau, Chávez, Chiu, Chu, Cooley,
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Cooper, Dababneh, Dahle, Daly, Dodd, Eggman, Frazier,
Gallagher, Cristina Garcia, Eduardo Garcia, Gatto, Gipson,
Gomez, Gonzalez, Gordon, Gray, Grove, Hadley, Harper, Roger
Hernández, Holden, Irwin, Jones, Jones-Sawyer, Kim, Lackey,
Levine, Linder, Lopez, Low, Maienschein, Mathis, Mayes,
McCarty, Medina, Melendez, Mullin, Nazarian, Obernolte,
O'Donnell, Olsen, Patterson, Quirk, Ridley-Thomas, Rodriguez,
Salas, Santiago, Steinorth, Mark Stone, Thurmond, Ting,
Wagner, Waldron, Weber, Wilk, Williams, Wood, Rendon
NO VOTE RECORDED: Beth Gaines
Prepared by:Joanne Roy / E.Q. / (916) 651-4108
8/10/16 17:02:54
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