AB 1159: Product stewardship: pilot program: household batteries and home-generated sharps waste.

The California Integrated Waste Management Act of 1989, administered by the Department of Resources Recycling and Recovery, is required to reduce, recycle, and reuse solid waste generated in the state to the maximum extent feasible in an efficient and cost-effective manner to conserve water, energy, and other natural resources.

Existing law requires a pharmaceutical manufacturer selling or distributing medication that is intended to be self-injected at home to submit, on an annual basis, to the Department of Resources Recycling and Recovery a plan supporting the safe collection and proper disposal of specified waste devices.

Existing law leaves in operation Department of Toxic Substances Control regulations, adopted until January 1, 2008, to exempt a hazardous waste management activity, including management of hazardous waste batteries, from certain statutory requirements related to hazardous waste management if specified conditions for exemption are met, including that the regulations identify the waste as a universal waste.

This bill would establish the Product Stewardship Pilot Program and, until January 1, 2024, would require producers and product stewardship organizations of covered products, defined to mean a consumer product that is used or discarded in this state and is either home-generated sharps waste or household batteries, to develop and implement a product stewardship plan, as specified.

This bill would require, by July 1, 2017, a producer of a covered product, individually or through a product stewardship organization, to submit a product stewardship plan to the Department of Resources Recycling and Recovery. The bill would require the product stewardship plan to include specified elements, including strategies to achieve performance standards and a funding mechanism that provides sufficient funding to carry out the plan. The department would be required to review and determine whether the plan is complete and, if complete, determine whether to approve or not approve the plan. The bill would require the department to notify the submitter of its decision to approve or not approve the plan, and, if the department does not approve the plan, would require the department to describe the reasons for its disapproval. The bill would authorize the submitter to revise and resubmit the plan and would specify that a plan not approved by January 1, 2018, is out of compliance.

The bill would require a producer or product stewardship organization implementing a product stewardship plan to prepare and submit to the department an annual report describing the activities carried out pursuant to the product stewardship plan, including whether the producer or product stewardship organization, in implementing the plan, attained the performance standards for the covered product, and if the performance standards were not met, what actions the producer or product stewardship organization will be taking to attain those performance standards.

A producer or product stewardship organization submitting a product stewardship plan would be required to pay the department, on an unspecified schedule, department an annual administrative fee, as determined by the department. The bill would require the fee be set at an amount that, when paid by every product stewardship organization that submits a product stewardship plan, is adequate to cover the departments full costs of administering and enforcing the program. The bill would provide for the imposition of administrative civil penalties upon a person who violates the bill and would provide that a plan submitter whose plan is not approved by the department by July 1, 2018, is subject to those penalties until the plan is approved. The bill would establish the Product Stewardship Account in the Integrated Waste Management Fund and would require the fees collected by the department to be deposited in that account, for expenditure by the department, upon appropriation by the Legislature, to cover the departments cost to implement the bills provisions. The bill would also establish the Product Stewardship Penalty Subaccount in the Integrated Waste Management Fund and would require that the civil penalties collected by the department pursuant to the bills provisions be deposited in that subaccount, for expenditure by the department, upon appropriation by the Legislature, to cover the departments costs to implement the bills provisions.

The bill would provide that certain actions of a product stewardship organization or its members are not violations of the Cartwright Act or certain provisions regulating unfair business practices or unfair competition.

The bill would require the department, by January 1, 2017, to adopt regulations to implement these provisions, including setting performance standards for each covered product, which would include a minimum collection rate and appropriate geographic coverage, and procedures for product stewardship plan submittal. By March 1, 2017, the department would also be required to appoint a stakeholder advisory committee for each covered product to provide technical feedback to a product stewardship organization. The bill would also require the advisory committee to annually report to the department on the progress of the product stewardship organizations implementation of the bills provisions.

The bill would require the department, by July 1, 2023, to report, for each covered product, specified information to the appropriate committees of the Legislature, including, the departments evaluation of each product stewardship organization, product stewardship organization evaluations of the department and stakeholder advisory committee, stakeholder advisory committee reports, and audited financials of each product stewardship organization. The bill would authorize the department to impose additional reporting requirements on product stewardship organizations and the stakeholder advisory committees to meet the departments reporting requirements to the Legislature.