Beverage container recycling: market development payments.

The California Beverage Container Recycling and Litter Reduction Act, which is administered by the Department of Resources Recycling and Recovery, is established to promote beverage container recycling. The act authorizes the department, subject to the availability of funds, to pay a market development payment to a reclaimer for empty plastic beverage containers that have been collected for recycling in the state, and that the reclaimer washes and processes into flake, pellet, sheet, or any other form that is then usable as input for the manufacture of new plastic products by product manufacturers in the state. The act also authorizes the department, subject to the availability of funds, to pay a market development payment to a product manufacturer for plastic flake, pellet, sheet, or any other form of plastic purchased from a reclaimer and used by that product manufacturer to manufacture a plastic product in the state. The act makes this market development payment program inoperative on July 1, 2025. The act continuously appropriates redemption payments by distributors and other revenues received into the California Beverage Container Recycling Fund for market development program payments, among other purposes. This bill would extend the inoperative date of the market development payment program to July 1, 2027, subject to the availability of funds, and would repeal the program as of January 1, 2028. By authorizing the expenditure of continuously appropriated moneys for these purposes beyond July 1, 2025, the bill would make an appropriation.