California keeps changing its waste rules. Consumers may pay the price.

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OPINION — Californians broadly support reducing waste. We want less conventional plastic, fewer food scraps in our landfills, and more effective recycling and composting systems. Consumers are also looking to companies to make more responsible packaging choices to support this sustainable future. 

That transition requires stable funding, which California’s landmark packaging law, Senate Bill 54, is designed to start driving with implementation in 2027. On paper, those investments should help California move closer to its waste-reduction goals — from better packaging to stronger systems for collecting and managing it after use. 

The cost to consumers may all be for nought if policymakers change the rules before those investments in the system can be realized. The way to avoid higher costs is by using policy founded on science-based standards that are measurable and that set up the system for success. As of today, California’s waste-related policies are too fragmented and contradictory to truly support the changes envisioned in SB 54 for a more sustainable and less wasteful future. 

SB 54 requires producers to reduce single-use plastic and move toward packaging that can be reused, recycled or composted, encouraging the industries involved to develop more sustainable materials and build circular waste hauling and management systems. Much of the public conversation around the law has understandably focused on what the transition will cost residents.

But focusing only on the cost of the initial transition misses a bigger source of expense that could hit California residents in the not-so-distant future.

As SB 54 moves into implementation, California policymakers have left existing policy conflicts unresolved while continuing to propose new bills that could further restrict one of SB 54’s three pathways for compliance: compostable products. 

For example, SB 54 was passed while another bill, Assembly Bill 1201, was already signed into law. AB 1201 ties California’s compostability requirements to a narrow federal marketing program in the National Organic Program in a way that is set to prevent certified compostable products from being sold or labeled as “compostable” in the state beginning in 2027. AB 1201 directly conflicts with one of SB 54’s compliance pathways by significantly limiting compostable packaging as an option. This change will take effect years before SB 54 can be fully implemented, and companies are already incurring costs to prepare for the AB 1201 requirement.  

Now, as SB 54 implementation gets underway in 2026, the legislature proposed new bills that would have threatened to narrow the compostable option even further, almost banning all compostable materials in the state. Those bills, AB 1812 and SB 1031, did not advance, but the underlying uncertainty around SB 54’s compostable pathway has not gone away. Similar bills are likely to return, making it difficult for businesses to confidently invest in the packaging and waste diversion systems California is asking them to quickly fund and achieve.

Because of contradictory policies and uncertainty, companies that have already developed compostable products and compliance systems are now often abandoning or significantly changing those investments as they redesign yet again, establishing new supply chains, etc., despite those items meeting globally recognized compostability standards that work for composters in states outside of California. Those sunk costs of whiplash changes do not disappear; they move through supply chains and ultimately reach consumers.

Local governments face the same problem. The state asks communities to expand organics collection and help residents separate food scraps, recycling and trash. Building those systems requires equipment, contracts, education and infrastructure — all of which residents ultimately fund. Changing the rules after those plans and investments are made can mean paying more to modify the system again.

To make matters worse, there is the cost of confusion. A consumer standing over a green bin should not need to understand California packaging law to dispose of a takeout container correctly. Yet when state standards, local acceptance rules and product labels do not align, people trying to do the right thing can get it wrong. More contamination means more material is sent to landfills, undermining any progress toward the sustainable waste system Californians are already paying for.

There is legitimate debate about the cost of SB 54 and how quickly California can transform a packaging system built over decades. SB 54 can work, but only if the policies around it support a stable system. 

We shouldn’t abandon SB 54. Instead, we must closely scrutinize the existing contradictions and any new bills that would stall or impede its implementation. Constantly changing the rules makes it more expensive for consumers, businesses and the broader waste ecosystem to meet the goals California has already set.

If lawmakers want Californians to keep buying into a more sustainable future, they have to stop making people pay for one that exists only on paper.

Ismat Yassin is a San Jose resident and the Senior Government Affairs Manager at BPI, where she helps leaders move complex waste policies and priorities forward