Spectrum News 1: New California law bans misleading recycling labels
California is banning the use of the recycling sign on products that are unrecyclable starting Jan. 1, 2022.
State Sen. Ben Allen, D-Santa Monica, authored Senate Bill 343, which was signed into law by Gov. Gavin Newsom this past October.
Sen. Allen told “Inside the Issues” host Alex Cohen he was inspired to create the bill after learning how the United States’ broken recycling system caused China to stop taking our refuse. He explained that there was such an excess of non-recyclable U.S. material that China was facing devastating climate consequences as more and more trash was being burned or thrown into water sources.
“I started to go down this rabbit hole of recyclability and reusability and waste reduction in general. It turns out there are a lot of inefficiencies in our system and a lot of things I think most average folks have no idea about,” he explained.
Sen. Allen’s legislation expands California’s “Truth in Environmental Advertising” law to prohibit the use of the “chasing arrows” symbol or any other recycling labels on materials that CalRecycle deems unable to be sold and manufactured into new items.
