Medical waste: pharmaceutical product stewardship program.

The Medical Waste Management Act, administered by the State Department of Public Health, regulates the management and handling of medical waste, including pharmaceutical waste, as defined. Existing law requires, among other things, that all medical waste be hauled by either a registered hazardous waste hauler or by a person with an approved limited-quantity exemption granted pursuant to specified provisions of law. 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 a pharmaceutical sold in the state to, individually or through a stewardship organization, to submit a plan, on or before January 1, 2015, to the Department of Resources Recycling and Recovery. The bill would require the plan to provide for the development of a program to collect, transport, and process home-generated pharmaceutical drugs and to include specified aspects, including the minimum amount of collection sites, including by January 1, 2016, at least one collection service within 10 miles per person in the state. The bill would require the department to post on its Internet Web site a list of the producers or stewardship organizations that have submitted a plan within 10 days of receipt of the plan. The bill would provide for the review and approval of the plan by the department, within 90 days of receipt of the plan. The bill would require the department to post on its Internet Web site a list of producers for which the department has approved a plan and the bill would require the department to update this list no less than once every 6 months. The bill would require a producer or stewardship organization, on or after April 1, 2016, and every 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 bill would require the producer or stewardship organization to pay the department an annual administrative fee in an amount that is sufficient to cover the department's costs of administering and enforcing these provisions. The bill would require the department to deposit the fees in the Drug Abuse Prevention and Safe Disposal Program 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 requirement. The 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 impose a fine on a producer or stewardship organization if a stewardship plan is not submitted by January 1, 2015. The bill would require the department to deposit these fines and penalties into the Drug Abuse Prevention and Safe Disposal Program Penalty Account, which this 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 enforce the bill's requirements.