SB 235: Recycling: precious metals and critical minerals: report.

SECTION 1.

The Legislature finds and declares all of the following:

(a) As a result of prior legislation, including Senate Bill 20 of the 2003–04 Regular Session (Sher), which enacted the Electronic Waste Recycling Act of 2003 (Chapter 526 of the Statutes of 2003), Assembly Bill 2440 of the 2021–22 Regular Session (Irwin), which enacted the Responsible Battery Recycling Act of 2022 (Chapter 351 of the Statutes of 2022), and Senate Bill 1215 of the 2021–22 Regular Session (Newman), which expanded the Electronic Waste Recycling Act of 2003 to include battery-embedded products (Chapter 370 of the Statutes of 2022), hundreds of thousands of cell phones, LED lights, fluorescent lights, computers, printers, televisions, batteries, battery-embedded products, and other forms of electronic waste are now being collected from California consumers and diverted from landfills.

(b) Many of these electronic waste items and other waste items contain precious metals and critical materials, including rare earth elements (REEs). REEs These materials are necessary for many green technologies, including electric vehicles, solar panels, and wind turbines. These green technologies are essential to meeting California’s climate goals and are essential to the world in helping to mitigate climate change.

(c) Currently, REEs many of these materials are mined. According to the United States Geological Survey, about 70 percent of REEs come from China.

(d) The mining of REEs these materials is energy intensive, relies on fossil fuels for extraction and shipping, and can be environmentally destructive to the communities where they are mined.

(e) Further, there is not enough inground supply of many REEs to meet demand. Researchers estimate that, “Among the leading global REE consumers—China, the European Union and the United States—China is projected to be the only nation capable of fulfilling its domestic demand....” (P. Wang, et al., “Regional Rare-Earth Element Supply and Demand Balanced with Circular Economy Strategies” (Jan. 4, 2024) 17 Nature Geoscience 94–102.).

(f) However, current research also reveals that recycling and reusing REEs from old cell phones, hard drives, electric motors, and turbines could meet as much as 40 percent of the demand for REEs in the United States, China, and Europe by 2050, and that the United States, the European Union, and Japan could eventually accumulate REE stockpiles in their old electronics and other products that far exceed what they would find mining the earth.

(g) Although California collects and recycles products containing REEs, precious metals, critical minerals, and other similar valuable materials, collectors here do not extract this valuable material. Instead, components containing REEs these materials are shipped to other countries, including Korea and Japan, for foreign entities to extract and reuse REEs them in new products.

(h) Because critical minerals and REEs are combined with other materials in products, extracting REEs these materials has historically been a highly toxic process. However, there are scientific breakthroughs being made to use nontoxic techniques so that REEs can be retained as part of a green, circular economy.

(3) The existence of current in-state processes to extract and separate these materials, whether that extraction is being used on recycled consumer goods or in mining operations.

(2)

(4)

The benefits to ability of California from recycling to recycle these materials in products sold and used sold, used, and disposed in the state to facilitate the transition away from fossil fuels.