This summer, about 1,000 households across the city of Napa and south Napa County have received a yellow crate to place next to their normal bins, in a test to see whether one of the nation’s biggest recycling blind spots can finally be addressed. Through November, Napa Recycling & 91TV Services and Napa County Recycling & 91TV Services are running a soft plastics recycling pilot program. Napa is one of five communities in California selected by the Circular Action Alliance for the pilot, the producer responsibility organization created by passage of Senate Bill 54, the state’s 2022 extended producer responsibility law for packaging.
Under SB 54, all packaging sold in California must eventually be recyclable, compostable or reusable, with a 65% recycling rate target by 2032. Flexible film is the biggest problem child. Chip bags, produce pouches and shrink wrap make up the state’s single largest packaging category, and currently, almost none of it has anywhere to go once collected.
Polystyrene foam is the opposite case. A statewide study found it fell short of the threshold showing most Californians could actually recycle it through their curbside programs, so it didn’t make the cut under SB 54, and it’s largely already vanished from takeout packaging. Flexible film won’t disappear the same way. It’s still cheap, lightweight and useful to producers as packaging, which is exactly why the industry is trying to find a way to recycle it rather than phase it out.