BILL ANALYSIS �
AB 2633
Page 1
Date of Hearing: April 28, 2014
ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON NATURAL RESOURCES
Wesley Chesbro, Chair
AB 2633 (Allen) - As Amended: March 28, 2014
SUBJECT : Recycling: plastic material
SUMMARY : Revises the state's 75 percent recycling goal to
include waste-to-energy (WTE) as recycling and requires the
Department of Resources Recycling and Recovery (CalRecycle) to
take specified actions to encourage specified recycling and WTE
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,
iii) Environmentally safe transformation (WTE) and
environmentally safe land disposal, at the discretion of
the city or county.
b) Specifies a state policy goal that 75 percent 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 percent 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,
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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)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.
b) Requires rigid plastic packaging containers, as defined,
to contain at least 25 percent 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 percent of solid waste
generated be source reduced, recycled, or composted by the
year 2020 to include solid waste that is "anaerobically
digested" or "used for electricity generation."
2)Requires CalRecycle to:
a) Investigate emerging technologies that convert used
plastic products into "new plastic feedstock, such as
propylene monomer."
b) By January 1, 2016, adopt regulations and protocols that
encourage WTE and "waste-to-fuel (WTF) pyrolysis" projects
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that "address various grades of plastic products that are
in landfills."
c) By January 1, 2016, and annually until January 1, 2020,
examine and report to the Legislature on possible
incentives for businesses and organizations that practice
"state-of-the-art, cost-effective material separation and
recovery techniques" to locate recycling centers in
California.
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 percent goal . AB 341 (Chesbro), Chapter 476,
Statutes of 2011 established a state policy goal that 75
percent 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
approximately 65 percent of solid waste from landfills.
AB 341 requires CalRecycle to adopt policies and incentives to
significantly increase recycling statewide. Since AB 341 was
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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.
This bill would abandon the state's solid waste hierarchy, in
place since 1989, and undermine the intent of AB 34, and
CalRecycle's ongoing efforts to increase recycling, by making
WTE equal to source reduction, recycling, and composting for
purposes of reaching the state's recycling goal.
3)The other 25 percent . 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.
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.
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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,
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 percent of the waste stream and materials
that cannot be recycled, AB 1126 (Gordon), Chapter 411,
Statutes of 2013 established permitting requirements for
conversion facilities that process "engineered municipal solid
waste." In May or June of this year, CalRecycle is planning
to hold the first in a series of workshops to "develop a
pathway for the recovery of energy, fuels, and chemicals from
solid waste residuals that cannot be recycled." Fundamental
to this process is ensuring that recyclable materials are
removed from mixed solid waste prior to being converted for
energy or fuels.
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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." According to the bill's sponsor, this provision
is intended to apply to technologies that would convert
municipal solid waste containing any amount of plastic. 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 all recyclables have been removed.
5)Managing plastic . Plastic comprises 9.6 percent of the total
disposed waste stream in California. For comparison, organic
waste comprises 32.4 percent, "inert and other" comprises 29.1
percent, and paper comprises 17.3 percent.
According to the author, "for the majority of plastics,
cost-effective recycling is difficult if not impossible."
According to the bill's sponsor, "the original waste
separation costs [for plastic recycling], no matter how low,
eventually end up being the deal-stopper. Anything that can
extract the maximum value and avoid the extra cost is
preferable." Plastic recycling is challenging, especially for
non-beverage container plastic; however, recycling rates have
been steadily increasing.
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 percent, 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.
This bill requires CalRecycle to investigate and report to the
Legislature on technologies and incentives for recycling in
California (the bill does not limit this provision to
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plastic). This requirement in the bill appears to be
inconsistent with the sponsor's assertion that the separation
costs for plastic make WTE a preferable alternative to
recycling. Moreover, this provision is duplicative of
CalRecycle's ongoing efforts to achieve the state's 75 percent
goal.
REGISTERED SUPPORT / OPPOSITION :
Support
Plastics Environmental Council (sponsor)
Opposition
AZUL
California Resource Recovery Association
Californians Against Waste
Center for Biological Diversity
City and County of San Francisco
Coalition for Clean Air
Environmental Working Group
Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives
Heal the Bay
Natural Resources Defense Council
Physicians for Social Responsibility, Los Angeles
Sierra Club California
Analysis Prepared by : Elizabeth MacMillan / NAT. RES. / (916)
319-2092