BILL ANALYSIS Ó
SENATE COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS
Senator Ricardo Lara, Chair
2015 - 2016 Regular Session
SB 742 (Hertzberg) - Solid waste: diversion.
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|Version: April 6, 2015 |Policy Vote: E.Q. 7 - 0 |
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|Urgency: No |Mandate: No |
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|Hearing Date: May 18, 2015 |Consultant: Marie Liu |
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This bill meets the criteria for referral to the Suspense File.
Bill
Summary: SB 742 would raise the requirement for each state
agency and large facility to diver 50% of its solid waste from
landfills to 60% by January 1, 2018.
Fiscal
Impact: Unknown costs and cost pressures, potentially in the
millions of dollars, from the General Fund and various special
funds, to a limited number of state agencies and facilities to
increase their waste diversion rates.
Background: Existing law requires that each agency and each large state
facility to divert at least 50% of all solid waste through
source reduction, recycling, and composting. These requirements
are the state government's complement to the California
Integrated Waste Management Act that establishes a state policy
goal that 75% of solid waste generated be diverted from landfill
disposal by 2020.
SB 742 (Hertzberg) Page 1 of
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Each state agency is required to annually report to CalRecycle a
summary of their progress in implementing solid waste diversion
programs. CalRecycle is allowed to consider an agency's or
facility's per capital disposal rate and growth rate to
determine compliance (PRC §42921.5).
Proposed Law:
This bill would raise the waste diversion requirement for the
state from 50% to 60%
Staff
Comments: Based on the reports submitted to CalRecycle, of the
282 reportable state agencies and large state facilities, only
27 facilities are have diversion rates of less than 60% already.
And of these 27, 13 have diversion rates exceeding 55% and
therefore may only need relatively minor measures to reach the
new limit set by this goal. The remaining 14 facilities,
however, would require more significant investment to comply
with this bill's requirement as many of these 14 have diversion
rates in the 30 and 40 percent range.
As allowed by statute, CalRecycle determines compliance based on
disposal amounts per employee (referred to as the diversion rate
equivalent). However, this per employee can be somewhat awkward
for agencies that may handle solid waste from other people other
than employees, such as visitors in state parks and inmates in
prisons as this can significantly skew the estimated diversion
rates. In recognition of this skewing and in recognition that
some facilities have unique waste diversion challenges (i.e.
state hospitals that generate significant amount of
bio-hazardous and non-recyclable waste), CalRecycle does not
solely rely on the diversion rate equivalent rates for these
agencies to determine compliance.
Considering how CalRecycle determines compliance with the state
diversion rate requirements and given the existing diversion
rates of state agencies and facilities, the costs to implement
this bill may be relatively controlled. The costs would vary
significantly between state agencies but given the number of
agencies and facilities affected, statewide total costs could be
SB 742 (Hertzberg) Page 2 of
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at least in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.
However, staff notes that the leniency that CalRecycle grants
state agencies in determining compliance, while reasonable, is
not explicitly allowed in the statute. Thus agencies and
facilities with low diversion rates because of special
circumstances would be under pressure to continue to raise its
diversion rate equivalent rates to 60% regardless of whether
CalRecycle considers them compliant or not. Because of their
special circumstances, the cost pressures to achieve 60% are
likely at least in the millions of dollars.
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