California SB 955

(1) 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 a "convenience zone" as the area within a one-mile radius of a supermarket, as defined. Under the act, a reverse vending machine, as defined, may be certified as a recycling center, as prescribed. 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. 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 a crime. This bill would specify that a reverse vending machine certified to operate as a recycling center does not make an unserved convenience zone served, 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, and that an existing certified recycling center is not ineligible for handling fees if a reverse vending machine is located in the same convenience zone. (2) The act defines a "supermarket" as a full-line, self-service retail store with gross annual sales of $2,000,000 or more that sells specified items and some perishable items. This bill would revise that definition by increasing the minimum gross annual sales to $6,000,000, revising the description of the required items for sale, causing recycling centers that are supermarkets eligible to receive handling fees under existing law to continue to be eligible to receive handling fees, and requiring the department to consult the most recent annual update to the Progressive Grocer Marketing Guidebook and other relevant updates to the guidebook to determine which dealers are supermarkets, as specified. (3) The act requires, until June 30, 2027, the handling fee to be determined using a methodology established by the department through emergency regulations, and requires those regulations to remain in effect through that date, as specified. This bill would extend the application of those regulations through June 30, 2032. (4) This bill would make an appropriation by expanding the entities that would be eligible at any given time for program payments, and by changing the calculation of handling fees, paid by the department from the continuously appropriated fund. (5) By adding new requirements to the act, this bill would expand the scope of crimes, thereby imposing a state-mandated local program. The California Constitution requires the state to reimburse local agencies and school districts for certain costs mandated by the state. Statutory provisions establish procedures for making that reimbursement. This bill would provide that no reimbursement is required by this act for a specified reason. This bill would declare that it is to take effect immediately as an urgency statute.