A coalition of opponents argues S.B. 343 will reduce recycling, not improve it
California’s Senate Bill 343, the so-called “Truth in Labeling” law, is facing a federal lawsuit before it even takes effect. A coalition of farmers, food producers, restaurants, grocers and packaging manufacturers filed suit in the United States District Court for the Southern District of California, seeking a preliminary injunction to block enforcement of the law, which is scheduled to take effect on 4 October.
The coalition’s core argument is that S.B. 343 amounts to government-imposed censorship. Under the legislation, producers are prohibited from labelling packaging as recyclable unless it meets state-developed criteria that the plaintiffs describe as “rigid and arbitrary” and disconnected from the realities of local recycling infrastructure. The suit claims this will have the opposite effect to that intended: removing recycling guidance from packaging will cause consumers to lose the information they need to make the right decision at the bin.
Who’s behind the lawsuit?
The plaintiff list is long and reads like a cross-section of California’s agri-food and packaging sectors. It includes the Dairy Institute of California, the California Restaurant Association, the California Grocers Association, the Flexible Packaging Association, the American Forest and Paper Association, and a string of commodity commissions covering walnuts, strawberries, table grapes, blueberries and olive oil, among others.
Katie Davey, executive director of the Dairy Institute of California, put it plainly: “California is about to make it harder, not easier, for families to go green.” Her concern is that dairy cartons currently carrying recycling guidance will have to drop those labels, pushing more packaging toward landfill rather than the recycling stream.
The plaintiffs also argue that the law creates a compliance nightmare. Whether a recyclable claim is legally permissible depends, in practice, on the decisions of individual recycling programme operators across the state, factors that are outside any producer’s control or even their knowledge. That kind of legal exposure, the suit contends, is already chilling behaviour and driving up costs as companies begin removing recycling labels preemptively to avoid liability.
The other side of the story
The National Stewardship Action Council (NSAC), a co-sponsor of S.B. 343, sees things very differently. In a statement responding to the suit, NSAC argued that misleading recyclability claims have long undermined consumer trust, increased contamination in recycling streams, and pushed costs onto communities and ratepayers.
Their position is that the label on a package is often the last decision point before disposal, and that decision needs to be grounded in reality. “Recycling only works when materials are turned into new products and packaging,” NSAC said, adding that cleaner material streams are essential to building functional domestic end markets. The law, in their view, simply aligns recyclability claims with real-world outcomes.
Why this matters beyond California
This case sits right at the intersection of several tensions the packaging industry has been navigating for years: the gap between technical recyclability and actual collection and reprocessing infrastructure; the question of who bears responsibility for consumer communication; and the risk that well-intentioned regulation produces perverse outcomes.
The plaintiffs have a point that recyclability is not a binary fact. A flexible film pouch may be technically recyclable through specific drop-off schemes but practically unrecyclable for most consumers in most locations. Where you draw the line on that continuum is genuinely contested, and the answer varies by postcode.
At the same time, “recyclable” claims on packaging that rarely get recycled in practice have contributed to the credibility problem the whole industry is dealing with. Greenwash, even unintentional greenwash, has consequences.
The outcome of this case is likely to have implications well beyond California. Other US states are watching, and the underlying tension between producer communication rights and consumer protection from misleading claims is not going away. Whether the court sees S.B. 343 as a legitimate regulation of commercial speech or an unconstitutional restriction will set a marker that resonates across the sector.
