Plastic Pollution Prevention and Packaging Producer Responsibility Act: environmental advertising.

(1) The Plastic Pollution Prevention and Packaging Producer Responsibility Act covers certain single-use packaging and plastic single-use food service ware, as provided. As part of its comprehensive statutory scheme, the act requires producers of those covered materials to reduce and recycle the covered plastic material and to ensure that covered materials that are offered for sale, distributed, or imported in or into the state on or after January 1, 2032, are recyclable or compostable, as provided. The act authorizes the Department of Resources Recycling and Recovery to identify materials that are trending toward meeting specified requirements and criteria to be considered recyclable within the state, as provided, and requires those material types and forms to be considered and labeled as recyclable in the state as long as the material types and forms meet certain requirements. This bill would instead authorize a producer or group of producers of products using covered materials to, on or before January 1, 2026, petition the department to identify material types and forms that meet those specified requirements and criteria to be considered as recyclable in the state. The bill would require the department to review the petition and approve or deny it within 60 days of receipt, as provided. (2) Existing law provides that a product or packaging that displays a chasing arrows symbol, among other symbols, statements, or directions, is deemed to be a deceptive or misleading claim unless the product or packaging is considered recyclable pursuant to statewide recyclability criteria and is of a material type and form that routinely becomes feedstock used in the production of new products or packaging, except for products or packaging manufactured up to 18 months after the date the department publishes or updates a specified material characterization study, as provided. This bill would additionally exempt from the above-described provisions any product or packaging that has been manufactured up to 24 months after the date the department publishes its first update to a specified material characterization study and for which a producer or group of producers has submitted a specified petition to the department. (3) Existing law provides that a product or packaging is not considered recyclable in the state unless the product or packaging meets specified criteria, including that the product or packaging does not contain an intentionally added chemical identified pursuant to specified regulations. This bill would exclude chemicals that are disclosed only for purposes of compliance with a specified regulation governing the disclosure of chemicals on a list produced under the Safe Drinking Water and Toxic Enforcement Act of 1986 (Proposition 65) from the intentionally added chemicals that would affect whether a product or package is considered recyclable in this state.