/>iCalifornia Senate Bill (SB) 707, also known as the Responsible Textile Recovery Act of 2024 (Act), establishes an extended producer responsibly (EPR) program for apparel and textiles, the first such program directed at apparel and textiles in the United States. The consequences of the EPR program will be significant for apparel and textile producers, and it is plausible other states may pass similar pieces of legislation in future years.
Similar to California’s other recent EPR endeavors (primarily SB 54’s EPR program for single-use packaging), the Act establishes an EPR program for textile producers under the Department of Resources Recycling and Recovery (CalRecycle)’s oversight in which the cost and burden of recycling covered textile materials shifts from consumers and municipalities to the producers themselves. Qualifying producers must join a stewardship organization that coordinates producer compliance with the Act. CalRecycle has until July 1, 2028, to adopt implementing regulations.
Producer Requirements
The Act requires subject producers to form and join a producer responsibility organization (PRO) that will develop and implement a stewardship plan for producers to comply with the law’s requirements for “collection, transportation, repair, sorting, recycling, and the safe and proper management of covered products in the state.”
The focus of the PRO’s requirements is to create a “free and convenient” drop-off and collection system to collect and recycle postconsumer covered apparel and textile products. The PRO will work with local county governments to develop specified collection sites in each county, with the number of collection sites in a county dependent on population density. Along with the collection sites, the PRO must develop a plan for how collected covered products will be sorted, transported, processed, laundered, reused, and recycled following collection at collection sites. This plan will include procedures for how covered products will be transported from collection sites to sorters, repair businesses, or recycling facilities, how collection sites will divert covered products to secondhand markets for reuse, and how the PRO will track the flow of covered products through this system. The PRO is additionally tasked with developing a statewide education and outreach initiative to communicate the collection program specifics to the public and encourage participation.
It remains unclear how this will work in practice. The Act does not fully contemplate certain logistical items necessary to effectuate the proposed collection system, such as whether the PRO will be able to utilize pre-existing recycling infrastructure and how the PRO will coordinate with individual counties to handle processing the covered products post-collection. Further, how CalRecycle intends to enforce compliance with the drop-off and collection system is uncertain given the excessive number of collection sites that must be established to meet the PRO’s obligations under the Act.
CalRecycle has until March 1, 2026, to approve a PRO, and producers will have until July 1, 2026, to join the PRO. Within 12 months of CalRecycle’s regulations taking effect, the PRO must submit a stewardship plan to the agency, which has 120 days to review and approve the plan. The PRO must implement the approved stewardship plan within 12 months of CalRecycle’s approval. Beginning July 1, 2030, producers will be subject to compliance under the stewardship plan.
Online Marketplace Reporting
Outside of the other producer requirements, online marketplaces are annually required under the Act to notify CalRecycle and the PRO of any third-party sellers on their platforms that sell more than $1 million in covered products in the preceding year.
An “online marketplace” is defined in accordance with the California Civil Code to include “consumer-directed, electronically accessed platform[s]” that include “features that allow for, facilitate, or enable third-party sellers” and that third-party sellers use “to engage in the sale, purchase, payment, storage, shipping, or delivery of a consumer product in this state,” and that the platforms have “a contractual relationship with consumers governing their use of the platform to purchase consumer products.”
The Act also uses the California Civil Code’s definition of “third-party sellers,” which defines these parties as persons or entities that sell consumer goods in the state on an online marketplace and are independent of the online marketplace.
Penalties for Noncompliance
Ultimately, on and after the date CalRecycle approves the PRO’s stewardship plan, retailers, importers, distributors, or online marketplaces cannot sell, import, or distribute the covered product in the state if the associated producer or brand is not in compliance with the stewardship plan. The Act authorizes CalRecycle to impose administrative penalties up to $50,000 per day for intentional or knowing violations. CalRecycle may also revoke a PRO plan’s approval or require additional reporting relating to compliance to meet the Act’s requirements.
Further, within 12 months of CalRecycle promulgating its implementing regulations, it will post on its website a list of producers and associated reported brands of covered products that comply with the law. Retailers, importers, distributors, and online marketplace sellers should monitor the agency’s website to determine if a producer, brand, or covered product it sells are in compliance.
