Solid waste: reporting, packaging, and plastic food service ware.

The California Integrated Waste Management Act of 1989, administered by the Department of Resources Recycling and Recovery, generally regulates the disposal, management, and recycling of, among other solid waste, plastic packaging containers and single-use foodware accessories. Existing law establishes the Plastic Pollution Prevention and Packaging Producer Responsibility Act, which covers certain single-use packaging and plastic single-use food service ware, as provided. As part of its comprehensive statutory scheme, existing law requires producers, as defined, of these covered materials to source reduce plastic covered material, to ensure that covered material offered for sale, distributed, or imported in or into the state on or after January 1, 2032, is recyclable or compostable, and to ensure that plastic covered material offered for sale, distributed, or imported in or into the state meets specified recycling rates, as provided. The act prohibits a producer from selling, offering for sale, importing, or distributing covered materials in the state unless the producer is approved to participate in the producer responsibility plan of a producer responsibility organization (PRO) , as prescribed, for the source reduction, collection, processing, and recycling of covered material, except as provided. The act requires the department to establish a producer responsibility advisory board for specified purposes. The act authorizes an affected entity that asserts that specific actions taken to meet the act's requirements are disrupting or otherwise adversely affecting the sustained operation or commercial viability of solid waste collection programs, solid waste recycling facilities, or composting facilities providing services in accordance with local solid waste handling requirements, to bring the concern and evidence supporting that assertion to the advisory board for discussion and to ask the advisory board to conduct a preliminary evaluation of the information. The act requires, if the evaluation demonstrates that specific actions are disrupting or otherwise adversely affecting existing operations, the advisory board to submit the concern to the department for further analysis. The act requires the department to analyze the information provided by the advisory board and authorizes the department to offer a recommendation for resolution. This bill would instead require, if the advisory board's evaluation demonstrates that specific actions are disrupting or otherwise adversely affecting existing operations, the advisory board to offer a recommendation for resolution within 90 days of submission of the request for a preliminary evaluation and thereafter authorizes either party to initiate nonbinding arbitration, as specified. The bill would require the arbiter to consider the information provided to the advisory board and any other information provided to the arbiter by the parties, and would authorize the arbiter to order actions to remedy any disrupting or adverse effect determined by the arbiter to exist. The bill would require the department to include any actions taken under these provisions to the Legislature, as specified. The bill would also make technical amendments and other revisions to the act's definitions.