Manufactures agree to California plastics program. (NonMetallics).

Nearly two dozen companies who use rigid plastic packaging have signed recycling compliance agreements with the California Integrated Waste Management Board, Sacramento.

Twenty-three companies signed the agreements in mid-October to bolster efforts by the State to enforce California's Rigid Plastic Packaging Container (RPPC) law. That law requires the State to work with business and industry to achieve higher rates of plastic recycling.

The RPPC law mandates that businesses must ensure that product containers sold in California meet the state's plastics recycling and minimum-content requirements.

Among the companies that have signed the agreement John Deere Consumer Products Inc., Lundmark Wax Company, Orange Glo International Inc., Sierra International Inc., Sunbeam Corp. and its subsidiaries, Turtle Wax Inc. and Foam Seal, Inc.

Some examples of plastic containers subject to California's minimum-content recycling law are soap and detergent bottles or jugs, household buckets, cleaners, paints, and motor oil containers.

California's RPPC law offers businesses several options for complying with the recycled-content provisions of the law. Companies may comply by using 25 percent postconsumer resin to make their containers; reduce by 10 percent the amount of plastic in their containers; make RPPCs that are reused or refilled at least five times; or they can ensure that 45 percent of their containers are recycled.