California plastic recycling rules spark court threats and industry pushback

Summary

California finalized new plastic packaging rules that, under a 2022 law, require plastic producers to make their products recyclable or compostable by 2032 and shift more responsibility for waste management to industry. The regulations—finalized at the start of May—have quickly generated threats of litigation from environmental groups and complaints from the packaging and plastics industry that the requirements are too demanding.

The dispute centers on how the rules will be implemented, including what materials fall under the program and where exemptions allow certain plastics to avoid obligations. It also reflects friction over what counts as “recycling” under state standards, and over whether the labeling system will let consumers identify which products they can place in recycling bins.

Environmental groups say that approach breaks the law. The Natural Resources Defense Council and Californians Against Waste said they plan to take California to court, arguing that the state’s rules allow recycling methods that create a lot of toxic waste and let some plastics bypass parts of the program entirely.

On the other side, plastic manufacturers and producers say the regulations go too far and will make products more expensive for shoppers. They also argue that some current packaging formats—such as plastic clamshells used to protect items like berries during transport—do not have straightforward substitutions at the scale required by the deadlines.

Sen. Ben Allen, a Democrat from coastal Los Angeles County who authored the underlying plastic waste law, said the program is still likely to matter. “This was the product of a compromise, and it was not perfect, and everybody walked away from the table, you know, unhappy about various aspects,” Allen said, adding that the program still “massively moves the needle on this really major problem” even if the process was “messy.”

Industry representatives argue that the real challenge is not whether alternatives exist somewhere, but whether they can arrive fast enough and at sufficient scale. Joe Árvai, director of the University of Southern California’s Wrigley Institute for Environmental Studies, said the changes amount to a longer-term shift that the U.S. needs to prepare for. “California is the United States, but 30 years in the future,” Árvai said, describing current developments as “emblematic of trends that we are seeing worldwide … and the U.S. needs to adapt in the way that those countries are adapting in order to remain globally competitive.”

Under the 2022 Senate Bill 54, the law covers plastic food-service ware and almost all single-use packaging, including plastic film and many types of consumer products. The regulations also define “producer,” a term used for companies that make more than $1 million in sales and produce plastic-packaged products or sell under brands that package products in plastic. Producers are required to join the program’s organizing nonprofit, pay fees to fund waste management, and meet compliance through steps such as using less plastic, switching to alternative materials, or investing in recycling infrastructure.

In practice, the state’s push comes against a backdrop of low recycling rates and a system that, according to the story, has long relied on consumers to recycle correctly even when many plastics do not end up being recovered. The article cites a 2021 national plastic recycling rate of 6% and says California-specific recycling performance for common items such as milk jugs and detergent bottles remains limited, based on a 2025 CalRecycle report.

The implementing nonprofit assigned to help producers coordinate compliance is the Circular Action Alliance, which is charged with submitting a plan to CalRecycle for how producers will meet the law’s goals. Sheila Estaniel, a spokesperson for the alliance, said in an email that “The biggest challenge is the scale and coordination required to modernize a complex recycling system across a state as large and diverse as California.”

The rules also reflect a complex regulatory history. The story says CalRecycle developed an initial draft of regulations in 2024 that expired, and in 2025 Gov. Gavin Newsom directed regulators to rewrite the rules. A second draft created a broad exclusion for plastics used for food and agriculture purposes, which advocates said gutted the law, before the final version narrowed exclusions to only plastic required under federal food safety requirements.

Advocates also object to how the state’s two-track structure will work in practice. They argue that the system can allow exclusions or exemptions to remain in effect even if challenges to compliance claims take time, and they also criticize recycling technologies that were excluded in the law but can be used if operators have hazardous waste permits. California’s attorney general, the story says, has argued that industry claims about chemical recycling are misleading, and Rob Bonta has sued ExxonMobil alleging it misled the public about recycling’s potential.

Beyond the core question of which plastics are covered, businesses also dispute how the labeling rules will affect packaging choices. The story says California’s accurate recycling labels law, Senate Bill 343, restricts use of the chasing-arrows recycling symbol unless certain criteria are met, and businesses argue consumers will recycle less if they cannot recognize items as recyclable. The dispute also includes estimates by the state and industry groups about the scale of investments required to shift away from single-use plastic, including an emphasis on the early-stage status of some packaging alternatives for food preservation and shelf stability.

CalRecycle’s next major test comes in June, when the Circular Action Alliance is expected to submit its plan outlining how producers will meet the law’s goals. Environmental groups say they will also be watching CalRecycle’s decisions as the agency evaluates applications for exclusions and exemptions, with the story reporting that the Natural Resources Defense Council is waiting for additional documents before filing its lawsuit. Sen. Allen said that if exclusions proliferate, the change risks turning into an implementation problem that shifts costs without achieving the law’s intended pollution reductions.