Solid waste: home-generated sharps.

(1) Existing law requires a pharmaceutical manufacturer selling or distributing medication that is intended to be self-injected at home to submit, on an annual basis, to the Department of Resources Recycling and Recovery a plan supporting the safe collection and proper disposal of specified waste devices. This bill would require a producer of home-generated sharps or a stewardship organization designated by the producer to submit a home-generated sharps stewardship plan by April 1, 2015, to the Department of Resources Recycling and Recovery. The bill would require the plan to provide for the development and implementation of a recovery program to reduce the generation of, and manage the end of life of, home-generated sharps, and to include specified elements, including provisions to meet specified minimum collection rates for the home-generated sharps subject to the plan. This bill would provide for the review and approval of the plan by the department and would require the department, on January 1, 2016, or upon the date the first plan is approved, whichever is earlier, to post on its Internet Web site a list of producers for which the department has approved a plan. The bill would require a wholesaler, health care facility, retailer, or other distributor that distributes or sells home-generated sharps to monitor the department's Internet Web site to determine if the sale of a producer's home-generated sharps is in compliance with the bill. This bill would require a producer or stewardship organization, by April 1, 2017, and every subsequent year thereafter, to prepare and submit to the department an annual report describing the activities carried out pursuant to the plan during the previous calendar year. The department would be required to review the report and would direct the department, if the annual report does not demonstrate the achievement of an unspecified collection rate increase, to require the program to take additional actions with regard to improving and increasing the number of home-generated sharps collection points, ensuring accessibility to those points, and providing additional education and outreach activities. The bill would authorize the department to exempt a producer or stewardship organization from the annual report requirements if the department determines that the collection rate for the home-generated sharps subject to a plan meets a 95% collection rate. This bill would require a producer or stewardship organization submitting a plan to the department to pay the department an annual administrative fee in an amount that is sufficient to cover the department's full costs of administering and enforcing these provisions. The bill would require the department to deposit the fees in the Safe Sharps Disposal Account, which the bill would establish in the Integrated Waste Management Fund, and the department would be authorized to expend the moneys in that account, upon appropriation by the Legislature, to administer and enforce the bill's requirements. This bill would require the department to enforce these provisions and would authorize the department to impose an administrative civil penalty on a person who violates the bill's requirements or on a producer or stewardship organization that does not achieve the unspecified minimum collection rate. The department would be required to deposit all penalties collected into the Safe Sharps Disposal Penalty Account, which the bill would create in the Integrated Waste Management Fund, and the department would be authorized to expend the moneys in that account, upon appropriation by the Legislature, to enforce the bill's requirements. (2) The existing Medical Waste Management Act, administered by the State Department of Public Health, prohibits a person from knowingly placing home-generated sharps waste in certain types of containers, requires that home-generated sharps waste be transported only in a sharps container, as defined in the act, or other container approved by the department or local enforcement agency, and requires that this waste be managed only at specified locations. This bill would additionally allow home-generated sharps waste to be managed at a facility or collection point operated pursuant to an approved home-generated sharps stewardship plan.