Governor Newsom’s new packaging regulations are a cop out, advocates say
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: September 9, 2025
Sacramento, CA — When California passed Senate Bill 54 in 2022, the world’s fifth-largest economy had enacted a bold law to hold plastic polluters accountable, cut waste at the source, and relieve taxpayers of skyrocketing costs for managing single-use packaging. SB 54 promised nothing short of a transformation: shifting responsibility away from the public and onto the corporations that profit from disposable plastics, reducing the $420 million spent by local ratepayers on litter prevention and removal. And given the worsening plastic pollution crisis, with microplastics found everywhere from the deepest ocean trenches to our brains, we can’t afford for SB 54 to fail.
But three years later, the Newsom Administration’s draft regulations threaten to unravel that promise. Governor Gavin Newsom ordered a rewrite of the first draft in March 2025, citing concerns about costs for businesses and consumers. Instead of upholding the law, the second set of rules issued by CalRecycle are riddled with loopholes that invite greenwashing, funnel money into unproven and harmful technological “solutions,” and shield industry from any meaningful shift from the status quo. Cost efficiency also means not wasting public money on costly “chemical recycling” schemes.
The result: a hollowed-out program that fails California communities, the environment, and ratepayers. That is why legislators, environmental and environmental justice organizations remain staunchly opposed to the proposed regulations as drafted, and are instead calling for the implementation of the law as intended – without creating industry loopholes or further imperiling the communities already hardest hit by pollution.
Notable Loopholes
“Chemical recycling”: SB 54 was explicitly written to ensure that harmful “chemical recycling” technologies are not considered recycling for purposes of the law. However, the law’s requirement that recycling technologies not produce “significant amounts of hazardous waste” has been rendered nearly meaningless in the updated regulations, which replace a detailed scientific process with a statement that a facility meets these criteria if the hazardous waste “is handled and disposed of in compliance with an applicable permit”.
So-called “chemical recycling” technologies are a cluster of costly, toxic, and climate-harming technologies – mainly pyrolysis, which is incineration under the federal Clean Air Act – pushed by the petrochemicals industry to rescue the tarnished image of plastic recycling and perpetuate single-use plastics. The changes to the regulations are in stark contrast to the California Attorney General’s suit against ExxonMobil filed last September, asserting that it “deceptively promotes “advanced recycling” as the solution to the plastic waste and pollution crisis”.
Food packaging: The draft regulations also permanently “categorically exclude” packaging for food or agricultural commodities based on “regulations, rules, or guidelines” issued by the USDA or FDA, whether or not these regulations legally preempt California. In effect, California would allow the Trump administration to issue a “guideline” permanently excluding food and agricultural packaging.
Advocates have issued the following statements in response to the draft regulations issued by Newsom administration:
“California’s SB 54 promised to shift responsibility for plastic pollution away from overburdened communities and onto the producers of the toxic plastic packaging themselves. Instead, the new regulations carve out loopholes that let polluters off the hook, once again sacrificing the health of environmental justice communities in order to grow industry profits. Californians need real solutions that put communities and health ahead of industry interests.” – Melissa Aguayo, Global Co-Coordinator, Break Free From Plastic (BFFP)
“This regulation reads like a cop-out to the petrochemicals industry. It ignores warnings from the environmental community and will see dirty, toxic incineration facilities mushrooming across California, at a great cost to the wallets and health of taxpayers. This isn’t what California needs – what we need is regulations that are faithful to SB 54 and a ban on the whole cluster of dirty technologies that is “chemical recycling”.” – Sirine Rached, Senior Policy Advisor, Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives (GAIA)
“California is on the verge of blowing its opportunity for transformational change by adopting regulations that effectively perpetuate the status quo. We are incredibly disappointed to see CalRecycle’s deliberative process be overridden by industry lobbying and political ambition.” – Nick Lapis, Director of Advocacy, Californians Against Waste
Press contacts:
Brett Nadrich, US Communications Officer, Break Free From Plastic
brett@breakfreefromplastic.org
María Guillén, Communications & Network Development Manager, Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives (GAIA)
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About BFFP — #BreakFreeFromPlastic is a global movement envisioning a future free from plastic pollution. Since its launch in 2016, more than 2,700 organizations and 11,000 individual supporters from across the world have joined the movement to demand massive reductions in single-use plastics and push for lasting solutions to the plastic pollution crisis. BFFP member organizations and individuals share the values of environmental protection and social justice and work together through a holistic approach to bring about systemic change. This means tackling plastic pollution across the whole plastics value chain – from extraction to disposal – focusing on prevention rather than cure and providing effective solutions. www.breakfreefromplastic.org.
About GAIA — The Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives (GAIA) is a member-based, environmental justice network working at the intersection of waste, climate, and justice. In the United States and Canada, GAIA supports grassroots organizations that advance zero waste solutions, challenge the plastics and petrochemical industries, reduce methane emissions, and promote safe, sustainable practices for electric vehicle battery production and recycling.