[Congressional Bills 118th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H.R. 9676 Introduced in House (IH)]
<DOC>
118th CONGRESS
2d Session
H. R. 9676
To direct the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency to
establish National Plastics Recycling Standards, and for other
purposes.
_______________________________________________________________________
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
September 19, 2024
Mr. Bucshon (for himself and Mr. Davis of North Carolina) introduced
the following bill; which was referred to the Committee on Energy and
Commerce
_______________________________________________________________________
A BILL
To direct the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency to
establish National Plastics Recycling Standards, and for other
purposes.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the
United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE; TABLE OF CONTENTS.
(a) Short Title.--This Act may be cited as the ``Accelerating a
Circular Economy for Plastics and Recycling Innovation Act of 2024''.
(b) Table of Contents.--The table of contents of this Act is as
follows:
Sec. 1. Short title; table of contents.
Sec. 2. Findings; purpose.
Sec. 3. Definitions.
TITLE I--NATIONAL PLASTICS RECYCLING STANDARDS
Sec. 101. National Plastics Recycling Standards Advisory Committee.
Sec. 102. National plastic recycling standards.
Sec. 103. Comparative study on carbon impact of raw materials.
TITLE II--MINIMUM MANDATE FOR RECYCLED PLASTIC
Sec. 201. Definitions.
Sec. 202. Minimum mandate for recycled plastic in plastics packaging
portfolio.
Sec. 203. Labeling compliance and enforcement.
Sec. 204. General provisions.
SEC. 2. FINDINGS; PURPOSE.
(a) Findings.--Congress finds the following:
(1) The Environmental Protection Agency has recognized that
reusing and recycling materials conserves natural resources,
reduces waste sent to landfills and incinerators, prevents
pollution, conserves natural resources, reduces greenhouse
gases contributing to climate change, and helps create jobs and
tax revenue.
(2) Given these benefits, the Environmental Protection
Agency set a National Recycling Goal in 2020 to increase the
national recycling rate for all materials to 50 percent by
2030.
(3) As a parallel effort, the Environmental Protection
Agency developed a ``National Recycling Strategy'' that
identifies objectives and actions to create a stronger, more
resilient recycling system.
(4) Collectively, these efforts intend to increase the
amount of materials that can be recycled, make the processing
system more efficient, ensure the industry can keep pace with
today's diverse and changing waste system, and strengthen the
economic markets for recycling materials.
(5) These measures are also intended to help manufacturers
make more products using recycled materials, increase
competition, and encourage demand for more products made using
recycled materials.
(6) There is an unprecedented public and private momentum
and investment to innovate, improve, and expand the existing
recycling system to develop a circular economy for plastics.
(7) A circular economy for plastic products and materials,
whether derived from oil, gas, or organics, benefits
businesses, society, and the environment.
(8) To meet the National Recycling Goal and support
domestic interests and competitiveness within international
markets, it will be necessary for the recycling market in the
United States to expand its deployment of advanced recycling
technologies.
(9) These innovative manufacturing processes fundamentally
transform the chemical structure of post-use polymer products,
many of which are traditionally hard to recycle by mechanical
recycling techniques, back to their basic chemical or molecular
components.
(b) Purpose.--The purposes of this Act are to--
(1) grow the circular economy for plastics products and
materials to--
(A) meet the National Recycling Goal;
(B) protect the global environment;
(C) reduce plastic waste;
(D) support the standardization of the recycling
infrastructure capacity in the United States; and
(E) bolster competition, technological innovation,
and robust global and national markets around circular
products;
(2) create national plastics recycling standards to
encourage the modernization of the recycling infrastructure of
the United States;
(3) foster competition and consistency in marketing
recycled plastics in plastics packaging;
(4) recognize advanced recycling technologies as a critical
component of the international market for recycled products and
the National Recycling Strategy;
(5) recognize advanced recycling as a manufacturing process
to be regulated under applicable Federal, State, and local
environmental statutes, rules, and regulations, including the
Clean Air Act (42 U.S.C. 7401 et seq.); and
(6) promote international movement towards the use of
advanced recycling technologies and the utilization of recycled
plastics in the manufacturing of plastics packaging to support
the global economy.
SEC. 3. DEFINITIONS.
In this Act:
(1) Administrator.--The term ``Administrator'' means the
Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency.
(2) Advanced recycling; advanced plastics recycling.--The
term ``advanced recycling'' or ``advanced plastics recycling''
means a manufacturing process for the conversion of post-use
polymers and recovered feedstocks into recycled products that
include basic raw materials, feedstocks, chemicals, and other
products through processes that include pyrolysis,
gasification, depolymerization, catalytic cracking, solvolysis,
chemolysis, and other similar technologies. The recycled
products produced at advanced recycling or advanced plastics
recycling facilities include, but are not limited to, monomers,
oligomers, plastics, plastic and chemical feedstocks, basic and
unfinished chemicals, waxes, lubricants, coatings, and
adhesives. Advanced recycling shall not be considered
incineration of plastics or municipal waste combustion, and
products sold as fuel are not recycled products. Advanced
recycling shall not be considered ``solid waste management'',
``solid waste processing'', ``solid waste recovery'',
``incineration'', ``treatment'', ``thermal destruction'',
``municipal waste combustion'', ``waste-to-energy'', or similar
designations that would prevent the process from being
considered a recycling process and the products from such
process being considered recycled products. Advanced recycling
shall be regulated as a manufacturing process under any
potentially applicable Federal, State, or local environmental
laws, rules, and regulations, including, but not limited to,
the Clean Air Act (42 U.S.C. 7401 et seq.), the Clean Water Act
(33 U.S.C. 1251 et seq.), and the Solid Waste Disposal Act (42
U.S.C. 6901 et seq,).
(3) Advanced recycling facility; advanced plastics
recycling facility.--The term ``advanced recycling facility''
or ``advanced plastics recycling facility'' means a
manufacturing facility that receives, stores, and converts
post-use polymers and advanced recycling plastic feedstocks it
receives using advanced recycling. Advanced recycling or
advanced plastics recycling facilities shall not be considered
``solid waste facilities'', ``solid waste disposal
facilities'', ``solid waste management facilities'', ``resource
recovery facilities'', ``materials recovery facilities'',
``thermal destruction facilities'', ``incinerators'',
``municipal waste combustors'', ``combustion facilities'',
``treatment facilities'', ``reclamation facilities'',
``recycling facilities'', or ``recycling centers'', as defined
herein or in under definitions in the Solid Waste Disposal Act
(42 U.S.C. 6901 et seq.), the Clean Air Act (42 U.S.C. 7401 et
seq.), or any other potentially applicable Federal, State, or
local environmental laws, rules, and regulations. Advanced
recycling or advanced plastics recycling facilities shall be
regulated as manufacturing facilities under any potentially
applicable Federal, State, or local environmental laws, rules,
and regulations, including, but not limited to, the Clean Air
Act (42 U.S.C. 7401 et seq.) and the Clean Water Act (33 U.S.C.
1251 et seq.).
(4) Approved certification system.--The term ``approved
certification system'' shall have the meaning ascribed to that
term in section 202(c)(2) of this Act.
(5) Auditable.--The term ``auditable'' means a system for
verifying the chain of custody between advanced recycling
plastic feedstocks, advanced recycling products, and the
plastics produced from advanced recycling products through
attribution using mass balance.
(6) Certified compostable product.--The term ``certified
compostable product'' means a product that is certified by a
recognized third-party independent verification body as meeting
the international standard specification ASTM D6400 (relating
to standard specification for labeling of plastics designed to
be aerobically composted in municipal or industrial facilities)
or ASTM D6868 (relating to standard specifications for labeling
of end items that incorporate plastics and polymers as coatings
or additives with paper and other substrates designed to be
aerobically or anaerobically composted in homes or municipal or
industrial facilities).
(7) Certified recycled.--The term ``certified recycled''
shall have the same meaning as recycled plastics.
(8) Chain of custody.--The term ``chain of custody'' means
a system to document and verify the path taken through means,
including but not limited to, physical methods or mass balance
attribution during the production of products.
(9) Circular economy.--The term ``circular economy'' shall
have the meaning provided in section 2 of the Save Our Seas 2.0
Act (33 U.S.C. 4201).
(10) Committee.--The term ``Committee'' means the National
Plastic Recycling Standards Advisory Committee established
under section 101.
(11) Disposal.--The term ``disposal'' has the meaning given
such term under section 1004 of the Solid Waste Disposal Act
(42 U.S.C. 6903).
(12) Gasification.--The term ``gasification'' means a
manufacturing process through which post-use polymers or
recovered feedstocks are heated in an oxygen-controlled
atmosphere and converted to syngas (carbon monoxide and
hydrogen), followed by conversion into valuable raw,
intermediate, and final products.
(13) Hazardous waste.--The term ``hazardous waste'' has the
meaning given such term in section 1004 of the Solid Waste
Disposal Act (42 U.S.C. 6903).
(14) Mass balance certification.--The term ``mass balance
certification'' means an auditable chain of custody accounting
methodology with rules defined by a third-party certification
system that enables the attribution of the mass of advanced
recycling plastic feedstocks to one or more advanced recycling
products.
(15) Marketer.--The term ``marketer'' means a person who--
(A) manufactures or purchases manufactured consumer
commodities, food, and beverages; and
(B) encloses, contains, stores, protects,
preserves, or identifies such consumer commodities,
food, and beverages in plastic packaging for the
purpose of selling, importing, or distributing in the
United States.
(16) Mechanical recycling.--The term ``mechanical
recycling'' means a recycling process that recycles material,
including plastic through a physical process, including
grinding, washing, separating, drying, regranulating, and
compounding.
(17) Minimum mandate.--The term ``minimum mandate'' means
the minimum mandate established under section 201(3).
(18) Municipal solid waste.--The term ``municipal solid
waste'' means garbage, refuse, industrial lunchroom, or office
waste, and other material, including solid, liquid, semisolid,
or contained gaseous material resulting from operation of
residential, municipal, commercial, or institutional
establishments and from community activities, generated by a
household, collected and disposed of at municipal solid waste
facilities, and any sludge not meeting the definition of
residual or hazardous waste hereunder from a municipal,
commercial, or institutional water supply treatment plant,
waste water treatment plant, or air pollution control facility.
The term does not include advanced recycling feedstocks that
are collected, sorted, transported, stored, or processed for
conversion to advanced recycling products through advanced
recycling. Municipal solid waste can be used as advanced
recycling feedstocks upon physical separation or sorting.
(19) National plastic recycling standards.--The term
``national plastic recycling standards'' means the standards
established under section 102.
(20) National recycling goal.--The term ``National
Recycling Goal'' means the goal set forth by the Environmental
Protection Agency during the 2020 America Recycles Summit to
increase the national recycling rate to 50 percent by 2030.
(21) National recycling strategy.--The term ``National
Recycling Strategy'' or the ``Strategy'' means the National
Recycling Strategy finalized by the Environmental Protection
Agency in November 2021.
(22) Plastic.--The term ``plastic'' or ``plastics'' means
any material made of polymeric organic compounds derived from
monomers and additives that can be shaped by flow.
(23) Plastics packaging.--The term ``plastics packaging''
means any immediate container or wrapping in which the
principal structural element is composed of plastic that is
used to enclose, contain, store, protect, preserve, transport,
or identify consumer commodities, food, or beverages for use in
the sale of such consumer commodities, food, or beverages.
(24) Plastics recycling accounting and labeling program.--
The term ``Plastics Recycling Accounting and Labeling Program''
means the accounting and labeling program established under
section 203(a) of this Act.
(25) Post-use plastic.--The term ``post-use plastic'' means
a pre-consumer recovered material or a post-consumer recovered
material that--
(A) contains plastic derived from a residential,
municipal, industrial, community, or commercial source;
(B) is not mixed with hazardous waste except to the
extent allowed by the national plastic recycling
standards; and
(C) is in a form acceptable for mechanical
recycling and advanced recycling.
(26) Post-use plastic product.--The term ``post-use plastic
product'' means material made wholly or in part of post-use
plastics.
(27) Post-use polymer.--The term ``post-use polymer'' means
a plastic to which all of the following apply:
(A) The plastic is derived from any industrial,
commercial, agricultural, or domestic activities, and
includes pre-consumer recovered materials and post-
consumer materials.
(B) The plastic has been sorted form solid waste
and other regulated waste but may contain residual
amounts of waste such as organic material and
incidental contaminants or impurities (e.g., paper
labels and metal rings).
(C) It is not mixed with solid waste or hazardous
waste onsite or during processing at the advanced
recycling facility.
(D) The plastic's use or intended use is as a
feedstock for the manufacturing of feedstocks, raw
materials, or other intermediate products or final
products using advanced recycling.
(E) The plastic is processed at an advanced
recycling facility or held at such facility prior to
processing.
(28) Pre-consumer recovered plastic material.--The term
``pre-consumer plastic recovered material'' means material that
has never reached the end user, having been diverted from the
waste stream during a manufacturing process. The term does not
include material generated in a process and capable of being
reused or reutilized as a substitute for a raw material without
being modified in any way. Pre-consumer recovered plastic
material collected, sorted, transported, stored, or processed
for use in mechanical or advanced recycling shall not be
considered solid waste under the Solid Waste Disposal Act (42
U.S.C. 6901 et seq.) or its implementing regulations.
(29) Processing.--The term ``processing'' means any method
or technology used for the purpose of reducing the volume or
bulk of municipal or residual solid waste for disposal. The
term does not include any method or technology used to convert
part or all of such materials for on-site reuse in advanced
recycling.
(30) Pyrolysis.--The term ``pyrolysis'' means a
manufacturing process through which post-use polymers or
recovered feedstocks are heated in the absence of oxygen until
melted and thermally decomposed (non-catalytically or
catalytically) and are then cooled, condensed, and converted
into valuable raw materials and intermediate and final
products, including but not