California’s Draft Zero Waste Plan (the Draft Plan) lays out an ambitious strategy to eliminate waste and transform material use, reuse, and management across the state. For businesses—including manufacturers, retailers, packaging companies, and food service providers—the message from the Department of Resources Recycling and Recovery (CalRecycle) is clear: the future is circular. 

Signaling a new era of shared accountability for the full lifecycle of products, the Draft Plan pushes broad, systemic change across industries and supply chains and would apply to a broad range of materials. The Draft Plan seeks to maximize the highest and best use of materials and products before they are managed as “waste.” On a high level, it calls for eliminating waste at the design, sourcing, manufacturing, and distribution stages; keeping existing materials and products in use for as long as possible; and responsibly recycling remaining materials. In doing so, it sets the stage for significant statutory and regulatory changes that will build upon those already being implemented by CalRecycle.

Businesses should act strategically and proactively now to influence California’s waste-reduction policies and position themselves for future developments.

Plan background and structure

In the 2023 Budget Act (SB 101), the California Legislature directed CalRecycle to develop a Zero Waste Plan by 1 January 2026 that evaluates the effectiveness of existing waste programs, identifies new strategies for addressing statewide solid waste and edible food recovery goals, and provides recommendations for any legislative changes needed to meet these goals. CalRecycle recently shared the Draft Plan for public comment. Although lacking inherent legal authority, the final plan will be nonetheless significant as it will display CalRecycle’s preferred legislative policies and its intended approach to regulatory implementation moving forward.

The Draft Plan is organized into eight focus areas, representing themes deemed necessary for advancing zero waste. Within the focus areas there are five “strategic pillars” addressing systemic changes needed for materials management and waste prevention, and three “cross-cutting foundations” that support implementation:

The Draft Plan outlines 15 recommendations that are intended to be applied to all materials and products and that are inclusive of both upstream and downstream interventions. For each recommendation, the Draft Plan identifies primary avenues for implementation, details initial steps, and names key parties. 

The Draft Plan includes a 2045 timeline scenario for implementing the recommendations, while acknowledging that numerous external factors will influence the pace and scale of its rollout. 

The Future of California Law and Policy

The Draft Zero Waste Plan puts forward a comprehensive set of proposals aimed at making statutes and regulations foundational to California’s transition to a zero waste, circular economy. Falling primarily under the “Policy and Regulation” pillar but reinforced throughout other strategic and cross-cutting areas, numerous proposals collectively provide a detailed roadmap for potential statutory and regulatory reform. 

Overall, the Draft Plan emphasizes proactive, cross-agency, and upstream interventions as core to California’s strategy for establishing a circular economy. The Draft Plan explicitly notes that an effective shift to zero waste may require statutory expansion of CalRecycle’s authority, particularly for materials or systems currently outside its legal mandate. Cross-agency action and inter-agency mandates will also necessitate statutory authorization.

Adopting a Circular-First Framework Based on a Materials Management Hierarchy 

The Draft Plan proposes the creation of a legal framework that prioritizes the highest and best use of materials, shifting focus upstream to redesign, reduction, and reuse before recycling and disposal. To accomplish this objective, it calls for the alignment of statutes, regulations, and policies across agencies to allow for coordinated materials management and collaboration, even for materials not under CalRecycle’s current authority. 

The Draft Plan proposes that new or modified compliance obligations incorporate circular design principles that extend product life; include source reduction requirements to use less materials; support product reuse, repair, and refurbishment; expand opportunities for materials management by changing the function of the product or material; and ensure materials considered to be recycled are returned to use. Implementing such a comprehensive framework would necessitate expanding CalRecycle’s current authority.

Refining Existing Statutes and Regulations for Highest and Best Use

The Draft Plan proposes a review of current policies, programs, regulations, and statutes to identify and revise areas that misalign with highest and best use principles—focusing on definitions, incentives, and requirements. The purpose of such a review would be to eliminate gaps, overlaps, and conflicting statutory and regulatory language and to promote cohesive and sustainable waste management systems. This proposal would likely result in modified definitions and enhanced reporting requirements, among other changes.

Establishing New Statutory Requirements and Shared Responsibility Frameworks

The Draft Plan proposes the development of cross-agency frameworks, including new statutory requirements where necessary, to clarify shared responsibility in circular materials management. It notes the need for collaboration to address overlapping policies for certain complex or nontraditional waste streams, such as agricultural materials, construction and demolition materials, and universal wastes. New statutes to support shared responsibility, agency assignments, and program design would likely be necessary.

Adopting Policies to Address High Priority Material Streams

The Draft Plan proposes the adoption of statewide policies to address sources of high volume or valuable waste or both, and materials of concern. Representative materials listed in the Draft Plan include energy transition materials, lithium-containing products, wood, and contamination in the organics stream. The Draft Plan acknowledges that not all materials and products have viable recycling or composting solutions available and identifies a number of specific materials as having “solution gaps,” including disaster debris, wind turbines, and medical waste.

Developing More Extended Producer Responsibility Programs

As a programmatic legislative tool, the Draft Plan recommends modeling new statutes on Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) to shift product management burden upstream and provide for compliance, enforcement, and redesign obligations. CalRecycle currently oversees numerous statewide stewardship programs, including those for textiles, beverage containers, batteries, pharmaceuticals and sharps, mattresses, carpet, and paint. The state legislature adopted the Plastic Pollution Prevention and Packaging Producer Responsibility Act (SB 54) in 2022, significantly expanding the scope of California’s EPR regulations to include product packaging and plastics. After Governor Gavin Newsom rejected the original SB 54 implementing regulations for being too burdensome on businesses, CalRecycle is currently drafting revised regulations to implement those requirements and is expected to finalize such rulemaking in early 2026. The Draft Plan proposes to build from this existing regulatory framework with the development of more EPR programs, specifically suggesting a program for low volume, hard-to-recycle products, identifying solar panels as an example of such a product. 

Using Programmatic Legislative Tools and Market Mechanisms

The Draft Plan recommends redesigning statutes on funding mechanisms to reduce CalRecycle’s reliance on landfill tip fees and allow for inflation adjustments, to expand grant and loan eligibility, and to align funding mechanisms and financial incentives with highest and best use principles. It also proposes an alignment of market signals through statutory fees to disincentivize disposal, in particular increasing landfill fees overall or creating new fees specific to materials with strong reuse or recycling markets with proceeds earmarked for circular infrastructure and enforcement. The Draft Plan posits that the public sector can incentivize circular behavior through the waste prices under their control. 

Data and Monitoring Requirements

The Draft Plan proposes an expansion of statutory reporting requirements to ensure the collection of accurate, meaningful data, including data on various materials flows from materials recovery facilities and self-haulers, as well as data on provided services and participation rates from municipalities. It also proposes integrating all data into a public platform to enable the detection of barriers and patterns, enhanced decision-making, and identification of circular opportunities. Mandating specific data may require adding or amending statutes.

Next Steps and Recommendations

Businesses should take strategic, proactive steps now to shape California’s approach to waste minimization and to prepare for what might lie ahead. Key actions to take could include:

• Engage with Regulators: submit comments on draft policies and proposed rulemakings; attend CalRecycle stakeholder sessions.
• Develop a Waste Reduction Roadmap: align internal goals with 2030/2045 benchmarks.
• Conduct a Waste Impact Assessment: map waste streams and benchmark performance against the proposed zero waste targets.
• Evaluate Packaging and Product Design: phase out single-use and nonrecyclable materials; establish recyclable packaging and single-use service ware products; prepare for new labeling and material mandates.
• Plan for Extended Producer Responsibility: assess exposure to current and future EPR obligations and model participation costs.
• Ensure Compliance with Organic Waste Requirements: strengthen food recovery systems and organic waste tracking.
• Track Funding Opportunities: identify potential grants and partnerships to support innovation and compliance.

The proposals set forth in the Draft Zero Waste Plan portend expanded legal requirements and increased enforcement pressure for the regulated community. Early movers have the potential to gain a strategic edge in shaping the evolving landscape.

Those seeking assistance with regulatory impact assessments, comment drafting, or compliance strategy development should contact the authors or another member of our Environment, Land, and Natural Resources practice group.