California to Prohibit the Use of Recyclability Labeling on Ineligible Products
The Golden State’s brands and retailers will soon face greater restrictions on the way they market environmentally conscious products.
The California Department of Resources Recycling and Recovery, otherwise known as CalRecycle, recently released the findings of a characterization study of materials collected, sorted, sold, or transferred for recycling in California. The research was mandated by the Truth in Environmental Advertising Act (SB 343), signed into law in 2021, which limits the use of the chasing-arrows recycling symbol (or any other symbol that denotes recyclability) to products the state deems truly recyclable.
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In order for a material to be characterized as such, it must meet certain criteria established by SB 343. Firstly, it must be collected for recycling by jurisdiction-based recycling programs that collectively account for at least 60 percent of the population of the state. Secondly, it must be sorted into defined streams for recycling processes by large-volume transfer processing (LVTP) facilities that collectively serve 60 percent of California’s recycling programs.
CalRecycle, which is an arm of California’s Environmental Protection Agency, found that 37 out of 98 material categories covered by the law—including most types of cardboard, aluminum, glass, paper and No. 1, No. 2 and No. 5 plastics—are currently recyclable in the state.
Textiles are another story. The group reported comparatively low levels of collection and sorting of clothing and fabric products for recycling, characterizing most of them as “Non-Recyclable Material (Organics and Hazardous Waste).” Today, less than 1 percent of the statewide recycling population accepts apparel and textiles for residential curbside recycling collection. Such products were found to have a “low recovery rate” in California, and they are commonly found in “residual waste” that is hard to recycle because of infrastructural limitations.
CalRecycle’s preliminary report doesn’t determine a product’s eligibility to use recycling iconography and labeling on its own, but the research will be used to inform the enforcement of SB 343. The findings include information taken from local jurisdictions regarding the materials they accept for their recycling programs, as well as survey results illuminating the recovery activities taking place at the state’s LVTPs. A material characterization sampling of recyclable materials was taken from LVTPs across the state.
“It was absolutely expected to be in their findings, because we know there’s just no program, no process” for textile recycling in the state, California Product Stewardship Council (CPSC) director of advocacy and outreach Joanne Brasch told Sourcing Journal. CPSC, which includes local governments, NGOs, businesses and community stakeholders, supports projects and policies aimed at pushing companies to share in the problem of managing product waste.
The group was the primary sponsor for the California Textile Recovery Act (SB 707), proposed by State Senator Josh Newman last March. The legislation would make textile and apparel “producers,” including brands, retailers and manufacturers selling within the state, liable for the waste the industry creates. Under the law, the textile and apparel sector would be responsible for funding an Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) program that manages the statewide collection and recycling of discarded garments and fabrics.
SB 707 was pulled from consideration last July, with its writers and sponsors, including CPSC, saying they needed more time to gather input from industry stakeholders. Since then, the bill’s proponents have been gathering those insights, with the goal of reintroducing it this year.
Brasch said the preliminary findings of CalRecycle’s SB 343 material characterization study “are not surprising whatsoever” and only serve to underscore the need for an EPR. “We see in the waste characterizations that [textiles represent] a high volume, but they’re not getting diverted yet,” she explained. “It’s a huge opportunity.”
Should SB 707 pass this year and a recycling program for textiles become available, Materials Recovery Facilities (MRFs) can begin diverting fabric and apparel waste through curbside pickup programs and other modes of collection. “Anyone who’s impacted by these findings, which could limit their labeling opportunities, should fully get behind SB 707,” Brasch said. “A permanent program that has transparency, market development and processing support—all the things to actually move the materials and get them back to market—will be available to use.” And if it is successful, companies will be able to mark their products with the chasing-arrows recycling symbol, she said.
While Brasch expected to see textiles make up a minority of the current recycling diversion efforts in the state, she said there was “room to improve and expand upon some of the details of [CalRecycle’s] methodologies” in assessing the situation. The group conducted spot studies for this analysis, while CPSC routinely performs textile-specific audits at MRFs across the state and has found “much higher rates” of textile collection. “We’re working with haulers, with fiber identification devices and with already pulled streams” of textile waste. “Some of our pilots are a little more accurate to what’s actually happening in the real world.”
She pointed to a recent fiber identification audit of San Jose, Calif. recycling and waste management service GreenWaste. Over the course of 36 hours, or about three shifts, the staff at the facility pulled 2.7 tons of textiles from the recycling lines. “That means it already went through curbside pick up, made it through the drop-off and onto the conveyer belts,” she said.
CalRecycle conducts a more in-depth waste characterization study every few years, sampling waste from across the entire state and providing more details about the contents of each waste material category and the way it is being handled. “Between the 2014 and the 2018 characterization studies, textiles was one of the fastest rising material categories,” Brasch said.
Now that it has published the preliminary findings of the study, CalRecycle is slated to conduct a public meeting on Feb. 13 to receive public comments. Written comments are due by Feb. 29. After considering that input, it will publish its final report.
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