Dive Brief:
- A coalition of business groups filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California on Tuesday challenging SB 343, California’s 2021 “truth in labeling” law that’s set to take effect this October.
- The Flexible Packaging Association and the American Forest & Paper Association are among the plaintiffs seeking a preliminary injunction to block enforcement.
- The coalition alleges that SB 343 will not increase recycling, and will instead increase consumer confusion — a key issue that drove the legislation’s development years ago. The law also “discourages investment in new recyclable materials, penalizing any innovation for even more sustainable packaging,” according to the announcement.
Dive Insight:
The lawsuit comes just over six months out from an Oct. 4, 2026, go-live date for SB 343. The law will prohibit the use of chasing arrows or other recyclability symbols on products and packaging unless specific criteria are met, including that a product or packaging is accepted for collection by programs collectively serving at least 60% of the the state’s population.
The law aims to reduce consumer confusion and improve the quality of recycling streams in California. It also has implications for California’s forthcoming extended producer responsibility for packaging law, as SB 54 relies on SB 343 criteria and findings about which items are actually recyclable in California, with categories such as flexible packaging at risk. The California standards and related packaging changes are expected to have ripple effects outside of the state.
Plaintiffs also include the California Restaurant Association, California Grocers Association, Pet Food Institute, Snac International and the Print Creative Alliance, among others.
The complaint alleges that SB 343 violates the free speech clause of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, and that businesses face undue burdens.
“Companies are already facing penalties and enforcement risk for providing recycling guidance that does not comply with the statute, and the law is already chilling speech and increasing costs as companies alter or remove recycling labels to avoid liability,” the coalition said in its announcement Tuesday.
The Flexible Packaging Association said in an emailed statement that “SB 343 restricts our ability to provide important recycling information and relies on standards that do not always reflect real-world recycling conditions.”
FPA is among the supporters of the PACK Act, a federal bill introduced in December that would harmonize labeling practices nationally. The Federal Trade Commission’s Green Guides, or guidelines for environmental marketing, are another source that seeks to govern recyclability, compostability and other sustainability claims on packaging, but they are not binding and have not been updated since 2012.
Environmental advocacy groups criticized the lawsuit.
“SB 343 aligns recyclability claims with real-world conditions. This approach is consistent with longstanding legal precedent allowing governments to restrict misleading commercial claims and protect consumers,” the National Stewardship Action Council said in an emailed statement.
“I think it is a disingenuous argument to claim that this will hurt recycling. Consumer confusion about recyclability leads to contamination in the recycling stream, which both hurts otherwise-recyclable packaging and increases the cost of the entire system,” said Nick Lapis, director of advocacy at Californians Against Waste, in an emailed statement.
Local jurisdictions and California’s attorney general may enforce SB 343 and impose penalties. CalRecycle is required to revise the material characterization study in 2027 and every five years after that.
