SECTIONS 14500-14501.5 - California Statutes

PUBLIC RESOURCES CODE

SECTION 14500-14501.5

14500. This division shall be known and may be cited as the
California Beverage Container Recycling and Litter Reduction Act.

14501. The Legislature finds and declares as follows:
(a) Experience in this state and others demonstrates that
financial incentives and convenient return systems ensure the
efficient and large-scale recycling of beverage containers.
Accordingly, it is the intent of the Legislature to encourage
increased, and more convenient, beverage container redemption
opportunities for all consumers. These redemption opportunities shall
consist of dealer and other shopping center locations, independent
and industry operated recycling centers, curbside programs, and other
recycling systems that assure all consumers, in every region of the
state, the opportunity to return beverage containers conveniently,
efficiently, and economically.
(b) California grocery, beer, soft drink, container manufacturing,
labor, agricultural, consumer, environmental, government, citizen,
recreational, taxpayer, and recycling groups have joined together in
calling for an innovative program to generate large-scale redemption
and recycling of beverage containers.
(c) This division establishes a beverage container recycling goal
of 80 percent.
(d) It is the intent of the Legislature to ensure that every
container type proves its own recyclability.
(e) It is the intent of the Legislature to make redemption and
recycling convenient to consumers, and the Legislature hereby urges
cities and counties, when exercising their zoning authority, to act
favorably on the siting of multimaterial recycling centers, reverse
vending machines, mobile recycling units, or other types of recycling
opportunities, as necessary for consumer convenience, and the
overall success of litter abatement and beverage container recycling
in the state.
(f) The purpose of this division is to create and maintain a
marketplace where it is profitable to establish sufficient recycling
centers and locations to provide consumers with convenient recycling
opportunities through the establishment of minimum refund values and
processing fees and, through the proper application of these
elements, to enhance the profitability of recycling centers,
recycling locations, and other beverage container recycling programs.
(g) The responsibility to provide convenient, efficient, and
economical redemption opportunities rests jointly with manufacturers,
distributors, dealers, recyclers, processors, and the Department of
Conservation.
(h) It is the intent of the Legislature, in enacting this
division, that all empty beverage containers redeemed shall be
recycled, and that the responsibilities and regulations of the
department shall be determined and implemented in a manner that
favors the recycling of redeemed containers, as opposed to their
disposal.
(i) Nothing in this division shall be interpreted as affecting the
current business practices of scrap dealers or recycling centers,
except that, to the extent they function as a recycling center or
processor, they shall do so in accordance with this division.
(j) The program established by this division will contribute
significantly to the reduction of the beverage container component of
litter in this state.

14501.5. This division does not apply to any beverage container
which is sold and delivered to a railroad, sleeping car, or steamship
company, or common carrier operating vessels, as defined in Section
238 of the Public Utilities Code, operating under a certificate of
public convenience and necessity, or an air common carrier, for use
and consumption on trains, vessels, or airplanes.