As reported here, on March 17, 2026, Western Growers and 20 additional trade associations representing retailers, restaurants, packaging suppliers and cosmetic, food, paper product and pet food manufacturers sued the California Attorney General to block enforcement of California SB 343’s ban on the use of the term “recyclable” or the chasing arrows symbol on products or packaging that do not meet the state’s strict criteria for recyclability. On April 24, 2026, the Plaintiffs moved for a preliminary injunction ahead of the Oct. 4, 2026, effective date of the labeling ban. The U.S. District Court in San Diego set the hearing on the preliminary injunction motion for June 1, 2026.

In California League of Food Producers, et al. v. Bonta, No. 26-cv-01675 (S.D. Cal.), Plaintiffs contend that SB 343 violates the free speech rights of their member businesses who wish to label their products as recyclable even though they do not meet the state’s criteria. They claim that their speech is not inherently misleading and so cannot be banned unless SB 343’s restrictions pass intermediate scrutiny under the U.S. Supreme Court’s Central Hudson test. That requires California to demonstrate that the law directly advances its asserted interests of reducing consumer confusion and landfill waste and is no more extensive than necessary to do so.

Plaintiffs argue that consumers know that “recyclable” does not mean “will be recycled,” and they challenge the law’s prohibition on qualified recyclability claims such as “Recyclable where facilities exist – check locally.” They also argue that the law will confuse consumers and result in increased landfill waste because items that can be recycled in a given locale will no longer be labeled in a way that instructs consumers to place them in the recycling bin. They note that materials that may be close to the 60 percent thresholds will never be able to achieve them because manufacturers will no longer be able to tell consumers how to recycle them. They also point out that California has other ways to advance its stated interests, such as permitting qualified claims or directly regulating products and packaging.

Plaintiffs also challenge the criteria as being too vague to put a reasonable person on notice of what is and is not prohibited, in violation of their member businesses’ right to due process. They note that a business cannot know whether a material “routinely becomes feedstock used in the production of new products or packaging.” They emphasize that even CalRecycle says it lacks the ability to determine whether any material is “reclaimed at a reclaiming facility consistent with the requirements of the Basel Convention.” They state that they cannot tell whether packaging is “designed” to avoid components that prevent its recyclability under the APR Design Guide, both because the Guide is not intended as a regulation and because it can be changed rapidly and without notice.