SB 54 was approved by the Governor and chaptered on 30 June 2022 (Chapter 75, Statutes of 2022). It requires that by 1 January 2032 all single-use packaging and plastic food-service ware sold in California is recyclable or compostable, that plastic packaging is reduced by 25 percent, and that 65 percent of it is actually recycled, with interim recycling rates of 30 percent from 2028 and 40 percent from 2030. Producers must join a producer responsibility organisation (PRO), a body that producers set up to run the scheme for them. Producers must also pay US$5 billion over ten years, US$500 million a year from 2027, into a fund to repair harm to health and the environment from plastic pollution.
The first set of implementing regulations was rejected by the Governor in March 2025 and redrafted; the Office of Administrative Law approved the permanent regulations on 1 May 2026 and they took effect on filing, giving producers until 1 June 2026 to register with the Circular Action Alliance and report. The Alliance submitted its programme plan on 15 June 2026. From 1 January 2027, or earlier if the plan is approved, producers may not sell packaging or food-service ware covered by the law in California unless they participate in an approved plan, and the PRO, Circular Action Alliance, must have cut the plastic packaging and food-service ware covered by the law by 10 percent.
Status as at September 2026: law in force with regulations effective since 1 May 2026 and reporting under way; source-reduction targets bite from 2027 onward. Dates verified against the California Legislative Information bill history for SB 54 and CalRecycle's packaging extended producer responsibility (EPR) page on 23 September 2026.