SB 634

Bill Subjects

Abstract

(1) Existing law, the California Beverage Container Recycling and Litter Reduction Act, requires the Department of Resources Recycling and Recovery to annually designate convenience zones and requires that at least one certified recycling center that meets certain requirements be located within every convenience zone. Existing law authorizes the department to grant a convenience zone an exemption from certain redemption requirements, including certain dealer and recycling center redemption requirements, based on certain factors. Existing law limits the total number of exemptions that may be granted to 35% of the total number of convenience zones identified as having one or more of those factors applicable. This bill would increase the total number of exemptions that may be granted to 40% of the number identified as eligible. The bill would require the department to review exemptions every 2 years to determine if each exemption still meets the prescribed exemption criteria. (2) The act requires dealers within a convenience zone where no recycling location has been established, or within a convenience zone that is unserved for 60 days and not exempt from convenience zone requirements, to submit an affidavit to the department stating that the dealer has met specified standards for redemption, including, among others, that the dealer is redeeming all empty beverage container types at all open cash registers or at one designated location on the dealer's premises, during all hours that the dealer is open for business. If the dealer does not submit that affidavit, existing law requires the dealer to pay $100 per day to the department, for deposit in the California Beverage Container Recycling Fund, a continuously appropriated fund described in (3) , until a recycling location is established or until the dealer meets the standards for redemption specified in the affidavit provision. This bill would revise these convenience zone redemption duties and exempt from those duties dealers with gross annual sales of less than $2,000,000 and dealers that are not supermarkets and that have less than 5,000 square feet of interior retail space. The bill, until January 1, 2022, would also exempt certain other dealers from these requirements. (3) The act establishes the California Beverage Container Recycling Fund and, except for administrative costs, continuously appropriates moneys in the fund to the department for specified purposes, including the amount necessary to pay handling fees to certain types of recyclers to provide an incentive for the redemption of empty beverage containers in convenience zones. This bill would require the department to offer a handling fee payment from the fund to certain certified recyclers within unserved convenience zones. The bill would make an appropriation by changing the terms and conditions under which the department is authorized to make payments from a continuously appropriated fund. The bill would authorize the department, until July 1, 2022, to annually expend $3,000,000 from the fund for specified supplemental handling fee payments to low-volume recycling centers. By authorizing the expenditure of a continuously appropriated fund for new purposes, this bill would make an appropriation. The bill would require the department to develop and submit to the Legislature recommended revisions to the handling fee provisions, as specified. The bill would require the department to suspend usage of surveys and calculations of recycling costs until at least January 1, 2021. (4) The act also continuously appropriates from the California Beverage Container Recycling Fund $10,500,000 annually for payments to cities and counties for beverage container recycling and litter cleanup activities. The act authorizes the department to withhold those payments to any city, county, or city and county that has restricted or prohibited the siting of a supermarket site, as provided. This bill would require the department, on or before July 1, 2020, to convene a public hearing, as specified, for purposes of discussing and receiving public testimony on the development of guidelines for evaluating the circumstances that might prompt the department to withhold beverage container recycling and litter cleanup activities payments to any city, county, or city and county that has restricted or prohibited the siting of a supermarket site. (5) Under the act, the department is required to calculate a processing fee for each beverage container with a specified scrap value, which is required to be paid by beverage manufacturers for each beverage container sold or transferred to a distributor or dealer. The department is required to calculate the processing fee in a specified manner, so that the processing fee generally equals 65% of the processing payment that the department is required to pay to processors if the scrap value of the container having a refund value pursuant to the act is less than the cost of recycling. The department is required to determine the statewide weighted average cost to recycle each beverage container type by conducting a survey, as specified. The department is required to establish a processing fee account in the continuously appropriated California Beverage Container Recycling Fund for each material type and to deposit processing fees and other amounts in the applicable account. This bill would authorize the director of the department, notwithstanding any other provision of the act, to declare a recycling exigency if the department makes specified determinations. If the director declares a recycling exigency, the bill would authorize the department to take the following actions: for any type of beverage container for which the annual recycling rate has dropped by a specified amount, adjust the processing payment to reflect a cost of recycling that is increased by at least 10%; increase the handling fee by at least 10%; establish and distribute from the fund supplemental recycling incentives totaling up to $500,000 per month to encourage the siting of new recycling centers; and establish and distribute from the fund PET quality incentive payments totaling up to $500,000 per month to material recovery facilities, as specified. The bill would establish a contingency for each of these actions that would trigger the termination of the department's authority to undertake the action. The bill would also authorize the department, if the director declares a recycling exigency, to approve limited-term pilot projects in accordance with prescribed criteria. By expanding the purposes of a continuously appropriated fund, this bill would make an appropriation.