Featured Viewpoint: Bill Shireman on California’s AB 2253

Bill Shireman helped create California’s beverage container recycling law nearly 40 years ago. In an op-ed for Capitol Weekly, he argues that AB 2253, a bill on recycled content claims now on Governor Newsom’s desk, would limit the recycling methods California needs to cut plastic pollution.

Read the full article on Capitol Weekly

Article: “A well-meaning bill could set California recycling back decades”
Published: Capitol Weekly, 25 August 2026
Author: Bill Shireman, President and CEO of Solution Citizen, founder of Circle America, advisor to EarthX
The bill: AB 2253, Protecting Consumers Against Greenwashing Act (Asm. Tasha Boerner)
Status: Passed the Legislature in late August 2026; the Governor has until 30 September 2026 to sign or veto

About the author

Bill Shireman is a longtime environmental entrepreneur and policy innovator. Working with Californians Against Waste in the 1980s, he helped design California’s “bottle bill,” the CRV system that brought together an unlikely coalition of Coors, Safeway and the Sierra Club and has since recycled hundreds of billions of containers. He is President and CEO of Solution Citizen, founder of Circle America, an advisor to EarthX, and writes the monthly “Inside the Circle” column on the circular economy for Resource Recycling.

What AB 2253 would do

AB 2253 would extend California’s rules for recycled content claims, which today cover plastic food containers, to every product that claims recycled content, starting 1 January 2030. Companies would need written documentation that a claim is based on actual recycled content, using one of several named chain-of-custody methods, and does not exceed the certified recycled content entering their supply stream. The bill was sponsored by Californians Against Waste. As introduced it would have banned credit-based mass balance accounting outright; later amendments replaced that ban with the documentation requirements.

Bill Shireman’s argument

Outside the CRV system, California has made little progress on plastic. Most plastic packaging is still buried, burned or lost to the environment, and SB 54, the state’s new packaging law, is the chance to change that.
Mechanical recycling cannot handle all plastic. Mixed types, additives and food contamination mean much plastic cannot simply be melted into new, high-quality plastic. Chemical recycling breaks plastic back into building blocks and can handle some of what mechanical recycling cannot.
Mass balance is a tracking system, not a trick. When recycled and new materials run through the same plant, companies track how much recycled material goes in and how much recycled product comes out, as sustainable lumber and coffee markets already do. Without it, he says, new recycling technologies would need separate factories before they have had a chance to grow.
Restrictions would mean less recycling and higher costs. In his view the result would be more plastic in the environment and a costlier path to SB 54’s goals for Californians.
Progress over perfection. He notes the CRV system was not perfect on day one and improved because it was built to adapt, and he calls on environmentalists and industry to stop fighting long enough to make SB 54 succeed.

His conclusion: lawmakers should “set AB 2253 aside” and focus on making SB 54 work.

The other side

Supporters, including Californians Against Waste, Beyond Plastics and the California Product Stewardship Council, say the bill simply makes sure that a product labelled as recycled really contains recycled material, and that it protects shoppers from greenwashing. Packaging and consumer goods groups, including Ameripen and the American Beverage Association, opposed it. Our technology guide sets out the questions worth asking about chemical recycling and recycled content claims, so readers can weigh both sides.

About the author

What AB 2253 would do

Bill Shireman’s argument

The other side

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