The Plastic Pollution Prevention and Packaging Producer Responsibility Act, passed and signed in 2022, went into effect on May 1. It demands a lot. By 2032, every shred of single-use packaging and single-use plastic food service ware sold in the state has to be recyclable or compostable.
The law covers not just items made and consumed in California, but also those imported from outside the state.
Because California is a massive market, many companies don’t produce one package for California and another for the other 49 states. Instead, they use a single design for everyone. That’s why the 17 states and other critics argue that California’s regulations have increasingly become national regulations.
It’s not the first time. California’s Proposition 12, which created stringent breeding rules for veal, pork and eggs, effectively made the state an independent regulatory entity that has forced “other states to comply with California’s law if they wished to have access to California’s markets.”
The lawsuit argues the law violates the Constitution by burdening interstate commerce, restricting how businesses communicate costs to customers, and effectively forcing companies into a single-state-approved producer organization.
Consumers may never notice this legal battle, but they could notice fewer packaging choices, higher prices, or redesigned products as companies adapt to California’s rules.
California has been waging war on plastic products for years. The attorney general claims, “We are currently living through a plastic waste and pollution crisis.” Lawmakers have kept the governor busy signing legislation intended to clean the state of a wide array of plastic items.
The real question isn’t whether plastic litter is a problem. It is. The question is whether bans and mandates are the best solution.
Public anti-litter campaigns, for example, are alternatives that have proven surprisingly effective.
For instance, the Lone Star State’s unofficial slogan “Don’t mess with Texas” began 40 years ago as an initiative to reduce litter by at least 5% in the first year. Planners were thinking too modestly, though. A commercial featuring legendary blues guitarist Stevie Ray Vaughan sending an “unforgettable message” made a significant impact, with litter falling by almost 30% in the first year of the program.
“Since then, this iconic social marketing campaign is credited with reducing litter by 72%,” says Social Impact Architects, a social issues consultant.
The Keep America Beautiful appeal, which has been around for more than seven decades, has also made a difference. Its 2020 national study found there had been a 54% decrease in roadside litter over the last decade.
But Sacramento lawmakers like to make splashy political statements with sweeping bills, and if the policies extend beyond the state lines and affect people who have no vote in California elections, then so much the better. This time, though, 17 state attorney generals are saying “no.”
California has every right to regulate products within its borders. Whether it has the right to reshape markets across the country is a question that the courts may now have to answer.
Kerry Jackson is the William Clement Fellow in California Reform at the Pacific Research Institute and co-author of The California Left Coast Survivor’s Guide.