Page 47 - Plastics News September 2022
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IN THE NEWS
California Legislature Now Targets Thermoformed Packaging
AB 2784 exempts thermoformed pack-
aging with a high recycling rate along
with medical device, pharmaceutical,
and infant formula packaging. Refillable
containers that “ordinarily would be re-
turned to the manufacturer to be refilled
and resold” also would be exempt.
To ensure compliance, the state would
impose an “annual administrative penal-
ty” on scofflaws, who would then depos-
it the fine into a Thermoform Recycling
Enhancement Penalty Account, also
created by the bill. AB 2784 sets forth
a series of calculations to determine
whether or not the packaging “produc-
er” has met the tiered requirements. For
alifornia legislators rushed to pass aging. If the bill is signed into law by example, the “underage amounts of re-
Chundreds of bills before the legisla- Gov. Gavin Newsom, it would require cycled resin” would be fined at a rate of
tive session formally ended at midnight most types of thermoformed plastic 20 cents per pound for all types of plas-
on Aug. 31. Buried within that paper containers to include a percentage of re- tic in thermoforming, except expanded
blizzard was AB 2784, which would cycled content that increases incremen- polystyrene, which gets hit with a hefty
establish a mandate for the quantity of tally from 10% in 2025 to 20% by 2028 $1 per pound.
recycled content in thermoformed pack- and 30% by 2030.
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