The California League of Food Processers (CLFP) with twenty other plaintiffs filed a preliminary injunction to California’s new ‘Truth in Recycling Law’. The legal challenge, heard before U.S. District Judge William Hayes on June 3rd, would block enforcement of the new law that would start October 4, 2026.  

SB 343, the ‘Truth in Recycling Law’, passed in 2021, would require food producers and manufacturers to meet new guidelines from CalRecycle to legally place recycling labels on products. According to the suit, and regulation, the recyclable product must meet four criteria:  

  • at least 60% of California residents have access to recycling the product;  
  • the product is sorted into streams in facilities represented by 60% of the recycling programs in the state;  
  • the product is not rendered non-recyclable by the Association of Plastic Recyclers; and,  
  • it does not include heavy metals or PFAS at 100 parts-per-million. 

CLFP asserts that the law is too vague, bans protected commercial speech and will result in less recycling as food producers remove the recycle label altogether rather than face potential liability. These flaws were brought up repeatedly by industry when the law was proposed and regulations were passed and were never addressed.