Beverage containers: wine and distilled spirits: processing fees.

Plain English Breakdown

The bill's full impact on manufacturers and recycling centers is uncertain due to lack of specific details.

Wine and Distilled Spirits Containers: Processing Fees

This law allows the Department of Resources Recycling and Recovery to adjust processing fees for certain wine and distilled spirits containers until January 1, 2031, ensuring they do not cause financial strain on manufacturers while still providing enough money for recycling.

What This Bill Does

• Allows the department to reduce the processing fee for special types of wine and distilled spirits containers if it forecasts that too much money will be collected compared to what is needed.
• Requires the department to increase the processing payment once a year if the original fee is higher than allowed by this law.
• States that the goal is to set fees at levels that do not hurt manufacturers but still give enough money for recycling centers.

Who It Names or Affects

• Beverage manufacturers who sell wine or distilled spirits in special containers like boxes, bladders, pouches, etc.
• The Department of Resources Recycling and Recovery
• Recycling centers that process these types of beverage containers

Terms To Know

Processing fee

Money paid by manufacturers for each container sold or transferred.

California Beverage Container Recycling Fund

A fund where the processing fees are deposited and used to pay recycling centers.

Limits and Unknowns

• The bill does not specify how much money will be saved by lowering the fee.
• It is unclear what happens after January 1, 2031, regarding these special containers' fees.
• The exact impact on manufacturers and recycling centers is uncertain.

Official Summary Text

SB 1341, as amended, Cabaldon.
Beverage containers: wine and distilled spirits: processing fees.
The California Beverage Container Recycling and Litter Reduction Act requires a beverage manufacturer to pay to the Department of Resources Recycling and Recovery a processing fee for each beverage container, as defined, sold or transferred in this state. The act requires the department to deposit the fee into the California Beverage Container Recycling Fund, a continuously appropriated fund. The act requires the department to pay processing payments to processors and recycling centers from the fund, as specified. The act requires the processing payment to be at least equal to the difference between the scrap value of the beverage containers and the sum of certain actual operational costs for certified recycling centers and a reasonable financial return for recycling centers, as specified. The act requires the processing fee to be 65% of the processing payment, except as specified.
This bill would, until January 1, 2031, authorize the department to reduce the processing fee for a beverage container that is a box, bladder, pouch, or similar container containing wine or distilled spirits to a value greater than or equal to the processing payment for HDPE plastic beverage containers if the department determines the aggregate amount forecasted to be collected from that processing fee will exceed the aggregate amount needed to pay the corresponding processing payment, as specified. Once each year, if the processing fee that would otherwise apply to a beverage container that is a box, bladder, pouch, or similar container containing wine or distilled spirits is higher than the processing fee established pursuant this bill, the bill would authorize the department to increase the processing payment for those beverage
containers.
This bill would state the intent of the Legislature that the department, in calculating the processing fee for a beverage container that is a box, bladder, pouch, or similar container containing wine or distilled spirits, establish the processing fee at a level that does not impose an economic burden on beverage manufacturers and generates sufficient funds to make processing payments to recyclers, as specified.

Current Bill Text

Download Bill PDF