The California Beverage Container Recycling and Litter Reduction Act requires the Department of Resources Recycling and Recovery to designate convenience zones annually and to ensure that at least one certified recycling center that meets specific requirements is located within each convenience zone. The act defines “convenience zone” as the area within a one-mile radius of a supermarket, and defines “supermarket” as a full-line, self-service retail store with gross annual sales of $2,000,000 or more, and that sells specified items and some perishable items. The act establishes the California Beverage Container Recycling Fund, and continuously appropriates moneys in the fund to the department for specified purposes, including the amount necessary to pay processing payments to recycling centers and to pay handling fees to certain types of recyclers to provide an incentive for the redemption of empty beverage containers in convenience zones. Under the act, a reverse vending machine, as defined, may be certified as a recycling center, as prescribed. The act prohibits processing payments, handling fees, and administrative fees for dealer cooperatives if a certified recycling center operates in a convenience zone where a dealer participating in the dealer cooperative is located. A violation of the act is an infraction.

This bill, for the purpose of defining a “supermarket,” would increase the minimum gross annual sales to $5,000,000 and revise the description of items for sale. The bill would specify that a reverse vending machine certified to operate as a recycling center does not make an unserved convenience zone served. The bill would specify that a dealer cooperative or a mobile unit is not precluded from operating and receiving program payments in the same convenience zone as a reverse vending machine. The bill would specify that an existing certified recycling center is not ineligible for handling fees if a reverse vending machine is located in the same convenience zone. The bill would specify that a reverse vending machine is not ineligible for handling fees because another recycling center becomes certified to operate in the convenience zone in which the reverse vending machine is already certified.

The bill would make an appropriation by expanding the entities that would be eligible at any given time for program payments paid by the department from the continuously appropriated fund.

By adding new requirements to the act, this bill would expand the scope of a crime, thereby imposing a state-mandated local program.

This bill would declare that it is to take effect immediately as an urgency statute.