SB 54 Plastic Tonnage Baseline Expected to Rise, CalRecycle Says

CalRecycle confirmed that its baseline calculation for the amount of plastic sold in the state is expected to increase in the next year. Producers’ required source reduction efforts under extended producer responsibility law SB 54 will be measured against that baseline. “The intent is not to just leave the baseline at this current number, which does not represent all participant producers,” said Laura Moreno, environmental program manager in CalRecycle’s policy office, at a meeting of the SB 54 advisory board. This follows an update to the source reduction baseline that was informed by 2023 data shared by producers in 2026. The updated figure reflected significantly lower overall tonnage than CalRecycle previously modeled, dropping from an estimate of 2.9 million tons to 1.03 million tons. At the same time, the number of individual plastic components rose from an estimate of 171.4 billion to 222 billion.

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