California’s already-troubled recycling system took another blow this month with the closure of Ontario-based rePlanet, which operated 284 recycling centers, the most of any recycling company in the state.

But despite complaints from environmentalists about 2 million recyclable containers a day being thrown away in the Golden State and from consumer advocates upset that state residents are losing $25 million in deposits a month, no fix is on the horizon. That’s even though there is general agreement on what would revive recycling: increasing the reimbursement rates that the California Department of Resources Recycling (CalRecycle) pays recycling centers that take in single-use glass, plastic and metal bottles. Legislation to increase rates appears stalled in Sacramento.

Another proposed solution is to increase the 5-cent deposit per small plastic or glass bottle to 10 cents, as Oregon and Michigan have done. Those states have 90 percent recycling rates, far better than the 75 percent rate reported in California before rePlanet shut down operations.

Fallout from China’s decision to stop buying recyclables

About 1,000 centers have closed since the state lowered reimbursement rates in 2016. Recycling in California and across America took a giant hit in late 2017 when China – by far the world’s biggest market for recyclables – stopped its program, concluding that processing other nations’ waste was not a good use of resources.

Given California’s history as a pioneering environmental state, green groups like Californians Against Waste are incredulous that state leaders like Gov. Gavin Newsom and predecessor Jerry Brown see fixing recycling as a low priority.

But China is far from the only player in the recycling debate which is rethinking recycling. Brown opposed increasing reimbursements on the grounds that it was time for the state to develop a “modern” version of recycling. 

In a policy debate with echoes of the present flap over whether dockless electric scooters actually help the environment, a growing number of economists are skeptical about whether recycling makes sense. They say the resources needed to process separate streams of waste use up considerable energy, especially because the industry has never been able to address the problem that most non-deposit plastic products placed in recycling bins aren’t recyclable. And with improvements in landfill liners and design, previous views of dumps as toxic sites have lost ground.

Another claim heard in the late 1980s when California and many other states launched recycling programs – that landfills were running out of room – no longer has many believers. 

The Los Angeles Times reported last week that since 2010, one landfill had been built and 36 landfills had been expanded in the state.

New York Times economics columnist John Tierney wrote in 2015 that “all the trash generated by Americans for the next 1,000 years would fit on one-tenth of 1 percent of the land available for grazing.” 

Environmentalists see single-use plastic as huge problem

But this view of recycling as inefficient, expensive and not particularly helpful to the environment is rejected by greens and by many Democrats who have taken on a new goal of ending all single-use plastics. They see plastic – which can last hundreds of years – as a huge pollution problem. That plastics are made from fossil fuels is also considered a major shortcoming. This view drives environmentalists’ goal of ending all single-use plastics – not just straws and utensils but consumer packaging. 

Senate Bill 54 – the California Circular Economy and Plastic Pollution Reduction Act – would commit California to a 75 percent reduction in single-use plastics by 2030. With 12 co-authors, the bill passed the Senate in May and won initial support from the Assembly Natural Resources Committee on generally party-line votes.

New York Mayor Bill de Blasio wants to go even farther. He has promised to eliminate the “ludicrous” and “outdated” practice of sending garbage to landfills.

The sample accounting projects 589,439 voters would like to see the bag law put to a vote, according to an analysis of the early sample by CalWatchdog.com.

Counties can provide early random samples of signature validations before the due date of Feb. 25. Several counties, including Los Angeles, Contra Costa and Fresno, have not yet competed their samples.

The plastic bag industry submitted petitions with 809,000 signatures in December, more than the required 505,000 needed to force a referendum in Nov. 2016.

The law was signed by Gov. Jerry Brown in Sept. 2014. If it goes into effect, larger stores would no longer be able to use the bags beginning this summer. The ban would begin for smaller volume stores in July 2016. 

If if the repeal initiative officially makes it onto the Nov. 2016 ballot, its qualification would delay the bag ban’s summer 2015 implementation until voters decided whether to keep the ban, or throw it out.

Records show advocates for the proposed referendum to overturn the ban have $3.2 million. A large number, $1.7 million, came from Hilex Poly, a South Carolina-based plastics firm, according to its latest campaign finance filing. The company was recently absorbed by NOVOLEX.

Hilex Poly donated a total of $1.8 million last year in California. The expenditure also included $40,000 to the Democratic State Central Committee of California, which has received Hilex money in the past.

Donors

Financing for the effort to overturn the legislation has come primarily from out-of-state donors like Hilex. Of the $3.2 million raised from nine donors, two are from California: Tustin-based Durabag gave $50,000 and Crown Poly in Huntington Park gave $12,000.

Additionally, the American Progressive Bag Alliance, a lobbying group for the plastics industry, continues to take in cash from large plastics companies. That cash infusion includes $680,000 from three Texas-based manufacturers in December alone.

“It’s expensive to fight, but California is important,” said Jon Berrier, a spokesman for the American Progressive Bag Alliance. “It’s one of those states where a policy is adopted and other states will look to it and see if it is something they want to do.”

Berrier said plastic bag manufacturing represents 2,000 jobs in California and 30,000 jobs nationally.

The major foe of the referendum is a conglomerate of environmental and grocery groups led by Californians Against Waste, which has formed a 501(c)(4) group, Protect the Plastic Ban, which reported $19,000 in donations in its first filing on Monday.

PPB’s largest donation so far is $2,500 from Chicobag, a Chico-based maker of reusable bags.

Groups

Another group launched Monday, California vs. Big Plastic, was funded with $9,000 from Californians Against Waste.

“We fully expect this to go to a vote, based on the signatures that were submitted and the numbers we are hearing,” said Mark Murray, executive director of Californians Against Waste.

Murray expects to need $10 million even to stay competitive with what he projects will be $40 million raised by repeal supporters.

“We will be relying on big environmental donors,” Murray said.

The referendum shapes up as a contest between two titans of respective industries – environmentalism and plastics – and all the formidable money and politicking each is capable of.

The law is the first statewide ban on plastic bags in the U.S., although 150 municipalities in the state have imposed their own prohibitions.

Other towns, cities and counties around the U.S. have passed bans, including Austin, Tex.; Chicago, Ill.; Washington, D.C.; and Montgomery County, Md.

The majority of the bans were put into place by a vote of elected officials, rather than a popular vote. Challenges such as the one in California have had mixed results.

Challenges

Voters in Issaquah, Wash., rejected a challenge to a city-approved bag ban in Feb. 2014, one of the few places the ban has been put on a ballot.

City councils in Homer, Alaska, and Basalt, Colo., enacted plastic bag bans in 2012, which voters turned back in both cities.

Voters in Durango, Colo., also voted down an ordinance approved by the city council that required grocers to charge 10 cents for a plastic bag in 2013.

California, though, has seen relatively clear sailing on municipally imposed bag policies. Most of the bans in place in the state cover grocery stores. But some also extend to drug stores and restaurants. Many require or allow a 10 cent charge for paper bags.

A ban on plastic in Los Angeles County was met with legal action from agents of the plastics industry. Four residents and Hilex Poly sued the county, claiming a bag ban requiring merchants to charge for a paper bag amounted to an illegal special tax because it was not approved by voters as required by state law. They lost the case.

The city of Huntington Beach banned plastic bags in 2012. But a new city council is working to repeal that ban.

The city of Carpinteria was forced to pay attorney’s fees in a case filed by pro-plastic bag activist Stephen Joseph, a Los Angeles lawyer, who sued the city for including restaurants in its plastic ban. He claimed state health and safety codes trump a municipality’s ability to regulate businesses. He was awarded $11,500 in fees and the city rescinded the restaurant requirement.

Joseph, dubbed in a Time magazine headline as “the Patron Saint of Plastic Bags,” has sued several other cities over bag bans.

He declined to speak about the statewide bag ban.