Solid waste: food packaging material: local regulation.

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 solid waste. The act prohibits certain stores from providing a single-use carryout bag to a customer at the point of sale and prohibits full-service restaurants from providing single-use plastic straws to consumers unless requested by the consumer. The act requires each city and county, and each regional agency formed pursuant to the act, to develop a source reduction and recycling element of an integrated waste management plan to divert 50% of all solid waste, through source reduction, recycling, and composting activities. This bill would prohibit a city, county, city and county, or other local public agency from requiring a grocery store, as defined, to use a certain type of food packaging for any food sold in the grocery store unless the majority of residential households within the jurisdiction of the local agency have access to a curbside program that accepts the material from which that food packaging is made. The bill would prohibit those local agencies from prohibiting a grocery store from using a certain type of food packaging for any food sold in the grocery store if a majority of residential households within the jurisdiction of the local agency have access to a curbside program that accepts the material from which that food packaging is made. The bill would require a local agency, if it requires a grocery store to use a certain type of food packaging, to identify the type of food packaging using standardized specifications, active at the time of the enactment of the requirement, from an established national or international organization, as provided.