California Recycling Laws
- Solid Waste Recycling is important to California and part of their law.recycling image by dbvirago from Fotolia.com
The growing need for solid waste management and reduction of pollutants has influenced politicians and state agencies to act. California has a few major recycling laws that have had some positive impact on the states green objectives. Laws include incentive based programs that pay consumers and retailers back for their recycling efforts and ensure the proper disposal or recycling of electronics. In addition the state has made some effort to reduce the amount of solid waste. - This law, enacted on January 1st of 2005, requires consumers to pay a fee on covered electronics upon purchase. The fee is called an Advanced Recovery Fee and it is used to pay recyclers who collect these objects and recycle or dispose of them properly. If a recycler or collector presents a receipt as evidence that they have properly recovered electronic from residents the state will reimburse them. Additions to this act were made on July 1st of 2006. This was titled the Cell Phone Recycling Act. This requires retailers to take back used cell phones and reuse them at no cost to the consumer. Another function enacted on the same day of 2006 requires retailers of rechargeable batteries to take them back and reuse them.
- In 1989 the Recycled Newsprint Act was established. This act requires large scale news print consumers, like news papers, to use at least 25 percent recycled paper. The act also stated that by the year 2000 these companies were to have increased the amount of recycled paper used to 50 percent. Publishers in California must also used recycled paper, a minimum of 40 percent is required by state law.
- This began by establishing the Integrated Waste Management Board in 1989. Their goal was to impose certain regulations on waste management centers with a diversion goal of recycling 25 percent of solid waste by 1995 and 50 percent by the year 2000. This law has been successful in some ways. Landfill capacity has increased with regard to some regional problems. Also, it has raised continuous debate about cost effectiveness and new ideas regarding recycling of solid waste. The board enforcing this mandate through a system of reporting and multiple state agencies.
- This was signed into law by governor Schwarzenegger on September 30th 2006. It is an incentive program aimed at reducing the amount of post consumer waste in the form of beverage containers. The state now offers a 4 cent refund for recycled beverage containers and even 8 cents for large containers. The law also included millions of dollars in grants for recycling center incentives and to increase multi-family recycling.
