Gov. Gavin Newsom on Friday signed a San Francisco assemblyman’s urgency measure providing funding to bolster the dwindling presence of recycling centers in California Friday.
Assembly Bill 54, by Assemblyman Phil Ting (D-San Francisco), allocates $5 million to implement a mobile recycling pilot program administered by the California Department of Resources Recycling and Recovery, known as CalRecycle.
As an urgency measure, the bill takes effect immediately.
The state’s largest operator of centers where the public can redeem the deposits on cans and bottles closed all its locations and dismissed off more than 700 workers in August.
Many areas no longer have locations to turn in items for recycling and the few centers that remain experience long lines, according to Ting’s office.
“AB 54 provides short-term relief to the thousands of Californians who need their container deposits refunded. Now the hard work begins. I will spend the next few months working on a more comprehensive solution that can start moving through the legislative process when we reconvene in January,” Ting said in a statement. “We can’t put off this reform any longer now that recycling programs are in a crisis.”
About 20 percent of the state’s redemption locations were operated by rePlanet, but the recycling market has seen a sharp decline in the scrap value of aluminum and recycled plastics.
The market downturn had earlier caused rePlanet to close 191 center in 2016 and recycling market has worsened under stricter rules enacted by China that have rendered many materials unacceptable for processing.
The mobile pilot program funded by the new legislation provides five grants that local governments, non-profit organizations and others can apply for in areas hit hardest by the rePlanet closures.
Centers funded by the bill must be open at least eight hours during the weekend, when demand peaks, and at least one pilot location must be in a rural area.
The bill also suspends requirements that grocers to accept beverage containers in-store when there are no nearby recycling centers.
Funding in the new bill comes in addition to $5 million included in California’s 2019-20 budget to help some 400 low-volume recycling centers stay open.
30 comments
Do we have enough signatures to recall this failure?
Not yet! http://recallgavinnow.com/ to look for petition locations!
Where can we go in Concord? My old spots are closed.
The CalRecycle locator shows two spots in Concord:
https://www2.calrecycle.ca.gov/BevContainer/RecyclingCenters/Details?RecyclingLocationID=539
https://www2.calrecycle.ca.gov/BevContainer/RecyclingCenters/Details?RecyclingLocationID=163
It’s like we’re being punished for recycling. Yeah, there indeed needs to be a solution.
I may have had something to do with it.
A while back, I tried to take bottles to the Safeway on Kirker Pass because they had a display sign stating they were “required” to redeem CRY containers in the store. Fast forward a couple weeks, and I was refused service when I tried to redeem 50 bottles. Apparently corporate got wind of my efforts and ordered managers not to recycle any bottles, claiming it was “cost-prohibitive” and they lacked space for storage.
Under the 1986 Bottle Bill, stores selling more than $2m of beverage sales and not within 1/2 mile of a recycling center were required to redeem CRY containers, or pay the state a fee of $100/day for every store not in compliance. After visiting stores around Contra Costa and Alameda counties, I issued formal complaints with CalRecycle against Safeway with the intent of visiting other large supermarkets to determine compliance and open up recycling options throughout the county. Safeway was at risk of spending $600,000 per year for refusing to comply with their already-required duties under state law.
Asking people on limited incomes to drive 15 miles to a dump/salvage yard or wait in line 1-2 hours defeats the purpose of encouraging recycling, unless you have money to burn in your pocket.
BTW, why suspend requirements on grocers? What do they do with money they collect? Redemption and recycling are two different things. Recyclers should essentially be getting the materials for free, if they are only returning the deposit money and not paying extra for the value of the bottles and cans.
The grocers remit the CRV value they collect to the state. The state then pays this, plus a cost for the labor, to the recyclers who submit claims.
The closure of the recycling centers is symptom of the problem that “going green” has. Simply put, it is not economically feasible. It is a giant red flag when the government is forced to subsidize these failing business models. Whether it is recycling centers, Tesla car purchases, or the Train To Nowhere, the economic facts show that these schemes cannot survive on their own merits. Gavin and his kind will continue to spout the same old “save the planet from an existential threat” crap while continuing to funnel our tax $ into bottomless pits THAT WILL NEVER SUSTAIN THEMSELVES!
I suggest that Gov. Newsom privatize the recycling centers and have the state run these things. I don’t believe for a second that they will suddenly become profitable, but at least then we will have some open accounting to see exactly how our taxes are wasted.
The recycling centers are private.
HUH
privatize the recycling centers and have the state run these things
That makes no sense, they are completely opposite of each other.
Concord Recycling Center on Galaxy Way.
Is it true that many people stopped recycling after finding out we’re not re-using our recycling but instead we are selling our recycling to China who is then dumping our recycling into the Pacific Ocean?
Yes:
https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/science/2018/09/07/great-pacific-garbage-patch-where-did-all-trash-come/1133838002/
Yes, plastic and aluminum has been sold to China (and other SE countries) for many years, and nobody knows what they’ve been doing with it. Possibly burning or dumping in the ocean.
Nope, people didn’t stop recycling because of that. However, China stopped accepted plastic contaminated with food, and even returned several shipments. And that’s what many people can’t be bothered with – washing plastic containers before putting them in recycling.
If we wash all our plastic containers we get that much closer to the next drought. Then water gets real expensive. There must be a better solution.
The CRV tax was a scam.
Just like the California lottery was supposed to save the Schools………..ha ha ha ha ha ha!!!!
Yup…most shrug and fling bottles and cans into recycling bin…enriching garbage company(s) bottom line to the tune of $$$$$$ (thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands?) per year
And from the New York Times: Your Recycling Gets Recycled, Right? Maybe, or Maybe Not
CRV is now a tax. Not that that wasn’t the intent all along.
And can you imagine the lines at these mobile recycling centers? It was bad enough at rePlanet.
He is trying to fund the bums
They need booze and go through the cans to take to the centers and buy booze
Simple as that
Unless you really thought newscum was actually doing anything for the people
Nope he is spending your money to fund the centers so bums can buy booze
And drugs
Snowflakes need booze
Although I usually disagree with your opinions, including “snowflakes need booze,” I absolutely DO think that this will continue to attract and enable the growing homeless population in California, because not only they will be guaranteed “safe drug use” locations, free needles and cell phones, no threat of arrest, but NOW an easier means of scraping together a few bucks to buy whatever they’re addicted to.
I looked up locations on the find your recycling center website because stores have to offer to take your CRV bottles back or pay a penalty if there is no nearby recycling location available. Clayton Safeway and Clayton Walgreens were on the list of stores that agreed to take bottles back but I never got around to seeing what would happen if I tried.
Yeah since this still America and we work round the clock 48/7 the programs need an off season too to recoup ourselves from the longer climactic shifts that have taken place these last 2 centuries.
I just avoid buying things that are detrimental and only buy cold cream from James Coburn when I can.
Why are we sending our recyclables to China? They are the ones that captured the market via cheap labor and then they turn around and changed the rules making it impossible for us to comply.
We are closer to having our plastics converted to fuel so why are we not doing this ourselves?
https://www.anthropocenemagazine.org/2019/02/new-technique-converts-plastic-waste-to-fuel/
China will no longer buy them from us. I think that starts in 2020. I’d have to look it up, but they won’t take our garbage anymore.
Chinas doesn’t want our recyclables anymore.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/11/world/china-recyclables-ban.html
Stop charging CRV. Just another political scam to steal money from the people.
When I lived near Boston, MA, most every supermarket had a machine outside that you could feed empty soda bottles into and it would pay you in cash. Worked well.
Here in CA, I agree, CRV is just another tax that very few of us ever get a rebate on…
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