Solid waste: single-use carryout bags.

Existing law, inoperative due to a pending referendum election, would otherwise, as of July 1, 2015, prohibit stores that have a specified amount of sales in dollars or retail floor space from providing a single-use carryout bag to a customer, with specified exceptions. That law would also prohibit those stores from selling or distributing a recycled paper bag at the point of sale unless the store makes that bag available for purchase for not less than $0.10 and would allow those stores to distribute compostable bags at the point of sale only in jurisdictions that meet specified requirements and at a cost of not less than $0.10. This same law, on and after July 1, 2016, would additionally impose these prohibitions and requirements on convenience food stores, foodmarts, and entities that are engaged in the sale of a limited line of goods, or goods intended to be consumed off premises, and that hold a specified license with regard to alcoholic beverages. This inoperative law would require, on and after July 1, 2015, a reusable grocery bag sold by certain stores to a customer at the point of sale to be made by a certified reusable grocery bag producer and to meet specified requirements with regard to the bag's durability, material, labeling, heavy metal content, and, with regard to reusable grocery bags made from plastic film on and after January 1, 2016, recycled material content. Existing law, included in the bill that enacted the provisions currently inoperative due to the pending referendum election, but not included in the referendum election, and thus operative, appropriates $2,000,000 from the Recycling Market Development Revolving Loan Subaccount in the Integrated Waste Management Account to the department for the purposes of providing loans for the creation and retention of jobs and economic activity in California for the manufacture and recycling of plastic reusable grocery bags that use recycled content. Existing law, subject to the referendum election, requires the department, no later than March 1, 2018, to provide a status report to the Legislature on the implementation of all of these provisions. This bill would repeal the above provisions and related provisions. This bill would declare that it is to take effect immediately as an urgency statute.