THIRD READING  

Bill No: SR 47

Author: Wieckowski (D)

Introduced: 6/5/19

Vote: Majority

SENATE ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY COMMITTEE: 6-0, 7/3/19

AYES: Allen, Bates, Hill, Skinner, Stern, Wieckowski

NO VOTE RECORDED: Dahle

SUBJECT: The Basel Convention

SOURCE: Author

DIGEST:

This resolution describes the challenges California has faced in achieving its ambitious solid waste reduction goals in the context of changing international agreements. SR 47 states how those efforts may be advanced by the United States ratifying the Basel Convention, and resolves that the State Senate urge the United States Congress to take the needed actions to ratify the Convention.

ANALYSIS: Existing law establishes, under the Integrated Waste Management Act of 1989 (IWMA), a state recycling goal of 75% of solid waste generated to be diverted from landfill disposal through source reduction, recycling, and composting by 2020. Requires each state agency and each large state facility to divert at least 50% of all solid waste through source reduction, recycling, and composting activities. (Public Resource Code § 41780.01, 42921, 42924.5).

This resolution:

1. Describes the role of the Basel Convention internationally and what the United States has lost by not ratifying it.
2. States that California has established and innovated towards ambitious goals for waste reduction, recycling, and composting.
3. Recognizes that California, struggling in the face of several specific classes of materials, has relied on foreign markets that it no longer can to process its recyclable waste.
4. Identifies ways in which the United States’ participation in the Basel Convention will address and alleviate these struggles.
5. Resolves that the State Senate urge the United States Congress to take the needed actions to ratify the Convention.

Background

1. Solid waste in California. For three decades, the California Department of Resources Recycling and Recovery (CalRecycle) has been tasked with reducing disposal of municipal solid waste and promoting recycling in California through the IWMA. Under IWMA, the state has established a statewide 75 percent source reduction, recycling, and composting goal by 2020 and over the years the Legislature has enacted various laws relating to increasing the amount of waste that is diverted from landfills. According to CalRecycle’s State of Disposal and Recycling in California 2017 Update, 42.7 million tons of material were disposed into landfills in 2016.
   
2. Market challenges for recyclable materials. The US has not developed significant markets for recycled content materials, including plastic and mixed paper. Historically, China, a party to the Basel Convention, has been the largest importer of recycled materials. According to the International Solid Waste Association, China accepted 56% by weight of global recycled plastic exports. In California, approximately one-third of recycled material is exported; and, until recently, 85% of the state's recycled mixed paper has been exported to China.
   

In an effort to improve the quality of the materials it accepts and to combat the country's significant environmental challenges, China enacted Operation Green Fence in 2013, under which it increased inspections of imported bales of recyclables and returned bales that did not meet specified requirements at the exporters' expense. In 2017, China established Operation National Sword, which included additional inspections of imported recycled materials and a filing with the World Trade Organization (WTO) indicating its intent to ban the import of 24 types of scrap, including mixed paper and paperboard, polyethylene terephthalate (PET), polyethylene (PE), polyvinyl chloride (PVC), and polystyrene (PS) beginning January 1, 2018. In November 2017, China announced that imports of recycled materials that are not banned will be required to include no more than 0.5% contamination.

In January of this year, China announced that it would be expanding its ban even further – to encompass 32 types of scraps for recycling and reuse, including post-consumer plastics such as shampoo and soda bottles.

In March, the Indian government announced that it will ban scrap plastic imports, a move that threatens to further disrupt the state’s recycling industry. It is presumed that these changes to policy took effect March 1, and, while the release did not specify the specific plastic resins that will be covered, it is speculated that the ban will apply to most plastics including PET, PE, PS, polypropylene (PS), and more. After China’s implementation of National Sword policy, India, also a party to the Basel Convention became one of the top importers of US plastic. US year-end trade figures for 2018 show that India imported 294 million pounds of scrap plastic from the US in that year. That was up from 271 million pounds in 2017 and 203 million pounds in 2016.

1. Plastic pollution. Plastics are estimated to comprise 60-80% of all marine debris and 90% of all floating debris. According to the California Coastal Commission (Commission), the primary source of marine debris is urban runoff (i.e., litter). By 2050, by weight there will be more plastic than fish in the ocean if we keep producing (and failing to properly manage) plastics at predicted rates, according to The New Plastics Economy: Rethinking the Future of Plastics, a January 2016 report by the World Economic Forum.
   

Due to the interplay of ocean currents, marine debris preferentially accumulates in certain areas throughout the ocean. According to Eriksen et al. (2014), 24 expeditions from 2007-2013 estimated that there are approximately 96,400 metric tons of floating plastic in the Northern Pacific Ocean. The North Pacific Central Gyre is the ultimate destination for much of the marine debris originating from the California coast. A study by the Algalita Marine Research Foundation found an average of more than 300,000 plastic pieces per square mile of the Gyre and that the mass of plastic was six times greater than zooplankton floating on the water’s surface.

1. The Basel Convention. The Basel Convention is an international treaty, opened for signature in 1989, which limits the international transfer of hazardous waste. For the 187 parties of the Convention (to which the United States and Haiti are the sole absentees), there are obligations to, among other specifications, prohibit both the import and export of hazardous waste without prior informed consent, to reduce and appropriately dispose domestic hazardous waste, to consider and appropriately enforce non-compliant hazardous waste trafficking as illegal, and to make other efforts to ensure waste is disposed only in environmentally sound ways. Recently, as part of the Fourteenth Meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Basel Convention in May 2019, an amendment to classify plastic as a hazardous waste under the treaty was adopted.
   
   Although the United States signed the treaty in 1989, the necessary legislative actions needed to ratify the Convention were never taken.

Comments

1. Purpose of resolution. According to the author, “The proliferating, negative impacts of plastic pollution around the globe are startling. By 2050, the ratio of plastics to fish in the ocean, by weight, will be equal. And our national recycling rate for plastics are in the single-digits.

“The Basel Convention is an international treaty that regulates movement of hazardous materials from one country to another. Recently, 187 countries agreed to add plastic to the list of materials in a global effort to combat the dangerous effects of plastic pollution around the world. Sadly, the U.S. was not one of signatories. In fact, we are only one of two countries who have not ratified the Convention.

“SR 47 calls on Congress and the President to re-assert the nation’s environmental leadership. It says the California Senate urges the U.S. Congress to ratify the Basel Convention take legislative action mandated by the convention to restrict the import and export of hazardous wastes covered by the agreement.”

FISCAL EFFECT: Appropriation: No Fiscal Com.: No Local: No

SUPPORT: (Verified 7/3/19)

California Product Stewardship Council

National Stewardship Action Council

StopWaste

TOMRA Americas

OPPOSITION: (Verified 7/3/19)

None received

Prepared by: Eric Walters / E.Q. / (916) 651-4108

7/3/19 17:48:24

**** END ****

SENATE COMMITTEE ON ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY

Senator Allen, Chair

2019 - 2020 Regular

Bill No: SR 47

SUBJECT: The Basel Convention

DIGEST: This resolution describes the challenges California has faced in achieving its ambitious solid waste reduction goals in the context of changing international agreements. SR 47 states how those efforts may be advanced by the United States ratifying the Basel Convention, and resolves that the State Senate urge the United States Congress to take the needed actions to ratify the Convention.

ANALYSIS:

Existing law:

1. Under the Integrated Waste Management Act of 1989 (IWMA), establishes a state recycling goal of 75% of solid waste generated to be diverted from landfill disposal through source reduction, recycling, and composting by 2020. Requires each state agency and each large state facility to divert at least 50% of all solid waste through source reduction, recycling, and composting activities. (Public Resource Code § 41780.01, 42921, 42924.5).
   

This resolution:

1. Describes the role of the Basel Convention internationally and what the United States has lost by not ratifying it.
   
2. States that California has established and innovated towards ambitious goals for waste reduction, recycling, and composting.
   
3. Recognizes that California, struggling in the face of several specific classes of materials, has relied on foreign markets that it no longer can to process its recyclable waste.
   
4. Identifies ways in which the United States’ participation in the Basel Convention will address and alleviate these struggles.
   
5. Resolves that the State Senate urge the United States Congress to take the needed actions to ratify the Convention
   

Background

1. Solid waste in California. For three decades, CalRecycle has been tasked with reducing disposal of municipal solid waste and promoting recycling in California through the IWMA. Under IWMA, the state has established a statewide 75 percent source reduction, recycling, and composting goal by 2020 and over the years the Legislature has enacted various laws relating to increasing the amount of waste that is diverted from landfills. According to CalRecycle’s State of Disposal and Recycling in California 2017 Update, 42.7 million tons of material were disposed into landfills in 2016.
   
2. Market challenges for recyclable materials. The US has not developed significant markets for recycled content materials, including plastic and mixed paper. Historically, China, a party to the Basel Convention, has been the largest importer of recycled materials. According to the International Solid Waste Association, China accepted 56% by weight of global recycled plastic exports. In California, approximately one-third of recycled material is exported; and, until recently, 85% of the state's recycled mixed paper has been exported to China.
   

In an effort to improve the quality of the materials it accepts and to combat the country's significant environmental challenges, China enacted Operation Green Fence in 2013, under which it increased inspections of imported bales of recyclables and returned bales that did not meet specified requirements at the exporters' expense. In 2017, China established Operation National Sword, which included additional inspections of imported recycled materials and a filing with the World Trade Organization (WTO) indicating its intent to ban the import of 24 types of scrap, including mixed paper and paperboard, polyethylene terephthalate (PET), polyethylene (PE), polyvinyl chloride (PVC), and polystyrene (PS) beginning January 1, 2018. In November 2017, China announced that imports of recycled materials that are not banned will be required to include no more than 0.5% contamination.

In January of this year, China announced that it would be expanding its ban even further – to encompass 32 types of scraps for recycling and reuse, including post-consumer plastics such as shampoo and soda bottles.

In March, the Indian government announced that it will ban scrap plastic imports, a move that threatens to further disrupt the state’s recycling industry. It is presumed that these changes to policy took effect March 1, and, while the release did not specify the specific plastic resins that will be covered, it is speculated that the ban will apply to most plastics including PET, PE, PS, polypropylene (PS), and more. After China’s implementation of National Sword policy, India, also a party to the Basel Convention became one of the top importers of US plastic. US year-end trade figures for 2018 show that India imported 294 million pounds of scrap plastic from the US in that year. That was up from 271 million pounds in 2017 and 203 million pounds in 2016.

1. Plastic pollution. Plastics are estimated to comprise 60-80% of all marine debris and 90% of all floating debris. According to the California Coastal Commission (Commission), the primary source of marine debris is urban runoff (i.e., litter). By 2050, by weight there will be more plastic than fish in the ocean if we keep producing (and failing to properly manage) plastics at predicted rates, according to The New Plastics Economy: Rethinking the Future of Plastics, a January 2016 report by the World Economic Forum.
   

Due to the interplay of ocean currents, marine debris preferentially accumulates in certain areas throughout the ocean. According to Eriksen et al. (2014), 24 expeditions from 2007-2013 estimated that there are approximately 96,400 metric tons of floating plastic in the Northern Pacific Ocean. The North Pacific Central Gyre is the ultimate destination for much of the marine debris originating from the California coast. A study by the Algalita Marine Research Foundation found an average of more than 300,000 plastic pieces per square mile of the Gyre and that the mass of plastic was six times greater than zooplankton floating on the water’s surface.

1. The Basel Convention. The Basel Convention in an international treaty, opened for signature in 1989, which limits the international transfer of hazardous waste. For the 187 parties of the Convention (to which the United States and Haiti are the sole absentees), there are obligations to, among other specifications, prohibit both the import and export of hazardous waste without prior informed consent, to reduce and appropriately dispose domestic hazardous waste, to consider and appropriately enforce non-compliant hazardous waste trafficking as illegal, and to make other efforts to ensure waste is disposed only in environmentally sound ways. Recently, as part of the Fourteenth Meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Basel Convention in May 2019, an amendment to classify plastic as a hazardous waste under the treaty was adopted.
   
   Although the United States signed the treaty in 1989, the necessary legislative actions needed to ratify the Convention were never taken.

Comments

1. Purpose of resolution. According to the author, “The proliferating, negative impacts of plastic pollution around the globe are startling. By 2050, the ratio of plastics to fish in the ocean, by weight, will be equal. And our national recycling rate for plastics are in the single-digits.

“The Basel Convention is an international treaty that regulates movement of hazardous materials from one country to another. Recently, 187 countries agreed to add plastic to the list of materials in a global effort to combat the dangerous effects of plastic pollution around the world. Sadly, the U.S. was not one of signatories. In fact, we are only one of two countries who have not ratified the Convention.

“SR 47 calls on Congress and the President to re-assert the nation’s environmental leadership. It says the California Senate urges the U.S. Congress to ratify the Basel Convention take legislative action mandated by the convention to restrict the import and export of hazardous wastes covered by the agreement.”

SOURCE:

Author

SUPPORT:

California Product Stewardship Council

National Stewardship Action Council

StopWaste

TOMRA Americas

OPPOSITION:

None received

-- END --