Environment
Waste Diversion

We all know the waste diversion mantra—reduce, reuse, recycle. Much has changed over the last 40 plus years as the characteristics of the solid waste we all produce as well as disposal and diversion methods have changed. While managing solid waste is a smaller percentage of the contributions to climate change impacts, there are so many actions that citizens can take individually. But it’s not just about individual responsibility, but also getting companies to take responsibility for the waste their products create. Incentivizing plastic waste reduction and better recycling outcomes will lead to creating a circular economy to divert waste from disposal.

Issue Team Chair: Ann Murphy, Waste Diversion Issue Chair, amurphy@lwvwa.org
  DOWNLOAD the Waste Diversion Issue Paper
Interested in getting involved with this topic? Contact Ann Murphy 

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Updates

Legislation

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Overview of the 2026 Legislative Session

The League of Women Voters of Washington supports legislation that diverts waste from disposal through reuse/repair, reduction, and recycling/composting using a variety of methods including recycling reform and product stewardship policies with special attention to packaging, plastics, batteries and digital electronic products.

Legislation in recent years has focused on implementing a number of policies to do just that --management of packaging through Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) in the Recycling Reform Act, right to repair of mobility equipment and electronics, management of composting, solar panel recycling, littering penalties, monitoring of PFAs in biosolids, and then to safely and sustainably manage the remainder. These efforts are to reduce the amount of waste that is actually disposed of by landfilling or incineration.

In the 2026 Session, legislators considered many bills that were designed to reduce and manage the waste that we all produce, including (but not limited to….) the recycling of electric vehicle batteries, environmental impacts of the fashion industry, refrigerant recycling. These bills along with two key bills – The Bottle Bill and a Ban the Plastic Bag Bill failed to make in through the legislature. It was a tough short session with many bills falling victim to the short time frame as well as the budget crunch. See the April 6 Final Update below.

The LWVWA supports legislation based on these position statements:

• LWVWA - Action for coordinated control and reduction of solid waste. Action to reduce the amount of hazardous waste generated in Washington and action to promote safe management of waste produced, including toxics in the home.
  
  
• LWVUS Policies to reduce the generation and promote the reuse and recycling of solid and hazardous wastes; Policies to ensure safe treatment, transportation, storage, and disposal of solid and hazardous wastes in order to protect public health and air, water, and land resources; and Planning and decision-making processes that recognize suitable solid and hazardous wastes as potential resources.

The LWVWA supports this priority based on positions documented in Program in Action and Impact on Issues. The Lobby Team will also support other issues when that legislation conforms to our positions and as our resources permit.

The LWVWA belongs to the Environmental Priorities Coalition that sets a core of legislative priorities by consensus for its 28 members to ensure the environment-focused organizations focus their effort with sufficient coherence to accomplish legislative progress. The 2026 priorities include the Bottles and Cans Recycling Refund Act.

Updates
At times during the session, an Issue Chair may write a "Weekly Update" to provide more details on what happened during the week. When they are available, they can be found below:

• January 11 
• January 18 
• January 25 
• February 1 
• February 8 
• February 15 
• February 22  
• March 1  
• March 8  
• March 15  
• April 6  