Judge blocks California recycling symbol law
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- U.S. District Judge William Hayes issued a preliminary injunction blocking SB 343, finding key provisions "unconstitutionally vague" and likely infringing protected commercial speech under the First Amendment.
- SB 343, passed in 2021, would have barred the chasing arrows symbol from goods not accepted by recycling programs serving at least 60% of Californians and actually sorted for recycling; enforcement was set to begin this fall.
- Hayes argued the law would not advance California's legitimate interests because companies would simply remove the recycling symbol rather than redesign packaging, potentially sending more items below the 60% threshold to landfills instead of recycling bins.
- Environmental advocates including Californians Against Waste director Nick Lapis criticized the decision, arguing the First Amendment protects free expression, not "a corporation's right to commit consumer fraud."
- Earth Island Institute and Californians Against Waste announced on July 27 they are joining California as defendants to give the court more information about how the recycling system actually works, including widespread "wish-cycling" contamination of blue bins.
- The ruling could jeopardize California's extended producer responsibility law, which shifts recycling costs from taxpayers to the companies that produce plastic packaging and relies on the same definition of recycling now under legal challenge.
Why it matters: California faces a difficult path forward — lawmakers could amend SB 343 to address the judge's concerns, but losing at trial would make it harder for other states to pass similar labeling rules. Earth Island Institute general counsel Scott Hochberg warned that states are increasingly being "blocked from implementing common-sense initiatives to protect their residents" when industry invokes the First Amendment, putting California's broader producer-responsibility law at risk as well.
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