CHAPTER 224
SB 367 - FINAL VERSION
02/24/2022 0789s
4May2022... 1764h
4May2022... 1899h
2022 SESSION
22-2965
08/11
SENATE BILL 367
AN ACT relative to the regulatory status of advanced recycling and manufacturing facilities.
SPONSORS: Sen. Avard, Dist 12; Sen. Watters, Dist 4; Sen. Hennessey, Dist 1; Sen. Bradley, Dist 3; Sen. Soucy, Dist 18; Sen. French, Dist 7; Sen. Cavanaugh, Dist 16; Rep. Pearl, Merr. 26; Rep. Potucek, Rock. 6
COMMITTEE: Energy and Natural Resources
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ANALYSIS
This bill regulates advanced recycling and manufacturing facilities.
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Explanation: Matter added to current law appears in bold italics.
Matter removed from current law appears [in brackets and struckthrough.]
Matter which is either (a) all new or (b) repealed and reenacted appears in regular type.
02/24/2022 0789s
4May2022... 1764h
4May2022... 1899h
22-2965
08/11
STATE OF NEW HAMPSHIRE
In the Year of Our Lord Two Thousand Twenty Two
AN ACT relative to the regulatory status of advanced recycling and manufacturing facilities.
Be it Enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives in General Court convened:
224:1 Legislative Findings and Purpose. The general court finds that:
I. New Hampshire is committed to a clean environment and protection of its natural resources. The United States Environmental Protection Agency has recognized that reusing and recycling post-use materials conserves natural resources, reduces waste, prevents pollution, reduces greenhouse gasses contributing to climate change and serves as an important economic driver, helping to create jobs and tax revenue.
II. The purpose of this act is to facilitate recycling of greater amounts and more types of plastics by ensuring that advanced plastic recycling technologies in New Hampshire protect the public health and safety by being appropriately regulated as manufacturers under New Hampshire’s applicable statutes and departmental rules relative to air, water, waste, and land use. Furthermore, such facilities will comply with all applicable federal statutes, including but not limited to the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, and Environmental Protection Agency rules governing hazardous waste.
224:2 New Paragraphs; Solid Waste Management; Definitions. Amend RSA 149-M:4 by inserting after paragraph I the following new paragraphs:
I-a. "Advanced recycling" means a manufacturing process for the conversion of post-use polymers and recovered feedstocks into basic raw materials, feedstock chemicals, and other products like waxes and lubricants through processes that include pyrolysis, gasification, depolymerization, catalytic cracking, reforming, hydrogenation, solvolysis, and other similar technologies. The recycled products produced at advanced recycling facilities include monomers, oligomers, plastics, plastics and chemical feedstocks, basic and unfinished chemicals, waxes, lubricants, and coatings. For the purposes of this chapter, the primary products of advanced recycling shall not include hydrocarbons which are marketed, sold, or used as fuel for energy. Incidental products may be used for fuel only within the facility. For the purposes of this chapter, "advanced recycling" shall not be considered solid waste management, solid waste processing, waste processing, treatment, incineration, or combustion.
I-b. "Advanced recycling facility" means a facility that receives, stores, and converts post-use polymers and recovered feedstock it receives using advanced recycling. An advanced recycling facility shall be considered a manufacturing facility. For the purpose of this chapter, "advanced recycling facility" shall not include a facility, solid waste facility, solid waste management facility, waste management facility, processing/treatment facility, solid waste collection, storage, and transfer facility, processing facility, treatment facility, or an incinerator.
224:3 Solid Waste Management; Definition of Certified Waste-Derived Product. Amend RSA 149-M:4, II-a to read as follows:
II-a. "Certified waste-derived product" means a constituent of solid waste which is no longer regulated as a solid waste when certified by the department to be recyclable for its original use or alternate uses and which poses no greater risk to the environment, public health, and safety than exists by producing, distributing, using, or disposing comparable products which are not waste-derived. Products derived from advanced recycling shall not be considered waste-derived products or require certification as waste-derived products.
224:4 New Paragraph; Solid Waste Management; Definitions. Amend RSA 149-M:4 by inserting after paragraph V the following new paragraph:
V-a. "Depolymerization" means a manufacturing process where post-use polymers are broken into smaller molecules such as monomers, oligomers, plastic or chemical feedstocks, or other basic raw materials.
224:5 New Paragraph; Solid Waste Management; Definitions. Amend RSA 149-M:4 by inserting after paragraph IX-a the following new paragraph:
IX-b. "Gasification" means a manufacturing process through which recovered feedstocks are heated and converted into synthesis gas in an oxygen-deficient atmosphere and the mixture is converted into valuable raw materials.
224:6 New Paragraph; Solid Waste Management; Definitions. Amend RSA 149-M:4 by inserting after paragraph XV the following new paragraph:
XV-a. "Post-use polymer" means a plastic to which all of the following apply:
(a) The plastic is derived from industrial, commercial, agricultural, or domestic activities.
(b) The plastic is not mixed with solid waste or hazardous waste.
(c) The plastic's use or intended use is as a feedstock for mechanical or chemical recycling.
(d) The plastic has been sorted from solid waste and other regulated waste but may contain residual amounts of solid waste such as organic material and incidental contaminants or impurities such as paper labels and metal rings.
224:7 New Paragraphs; Solid Waste Management; Definitions. Amend RSA 149-M:4 by inserting after paragraph XVIII the following new paragraphs:
XVIII-a. "Pyrolysis" means a manufacturing process through which post-use polymers are heated in the absence of oxygen, sometimes in the presence of catalysts, until thermally decomposed and are then cooled and condensed. The resulting chemicals, when separated from wastes, can provide raw materials for the production of plastics, lubricants, waxes, and other industrially useful chemicals.
XVIII-b. "Recovered feedstock" means one or more of the following materials that has been processed so it may be used as feedstock in an advanced recycling facility:
(a) Post-use polymers.
(b) Materials for which the United States Environmental Protection Agency has made a non waste determination pursuant to 40 C.F.R. 241.3(c), or has otherwise determined are feedstocks and not solid waste.
(c) Recovered feedstock does not include unprocessed municipal solid waste.
(d) Recovered feedstock is not mixed with solid waste or hazardous waste onsite or during processing at an advanced recycling facility.
224:8 Solid Waste Management; Definitions. Amend RSA 149-M:4, XXII to read as follows:
XXII. "Solid waste" means any matter consisting of putrescible material, refuse, residue from an air pollution control facility, and other discarded or abandoned material. It includes solid, liquid, semisolid or contained gaseous material resulting from industrial, commercial, mining, and agricultural operations, and from community activities. For purposes of this chapter, it does not include hazardous waste as defined in RSA 147-A:2; solid or dissolved materials in irrigation return flows; cut or uprooted tree stumps buried on-site with local approval if required, provided that such burial locations are not located within 75 feet of any drinking water supply; municipal and industrial discharges which are point sources subject to permits under section 402 of the federal Water Pollution Control Act, as amended; source, special nuclear or by-product material as defined by the Atomic Energy Act of 1954, as amended; [or] septage or sludge as defined in RSA 485-A:2, IX-a and XI-a; or post-use polymers and recovered feedstocks converted at an advanced recycling facility or held at such facility prior to conversion.
224:9 New Paragraph; Solid Waste Management; Definition. Amend RSA 149-M:4 by inserting after paragraph XXII the following new paragraph:
XXII-a. "Solvolysis" means a manufacturing process through which post-use polymers are purified with the aid of solvents, while heated at low temperatures and/or pressurized to make useful products, allowing additives and contaminants to be removed. The products of solvolysis include monomers, intermediates, and valuable chemicals and raw materials. The process includes but is not limited to hydrolysis, amylolysis, ammonolysis, methanolysis, and glycolysis.
224:10 New Subdivision; Solid Waste Management; Regulation of Advanced Recycling. Amend RSA 149-M by inserting after section 61 the following new subdivision:
Regulation of Advanced Recycling
149-M:62 Regulation of Advanced Recycling.
I. The department shall regulate advanced recycling facilities as manufacturing facilities. An advanced recycling facility and the products and by-products of advanced recycling shall be subject to applicable statutes and departmental rules relative to air, water, waste, and land use. The department may enter and inspect any advanced recycling facility to determine whether storage of materials prior to advanced recycling is a nuisance or poses a threat to the environment. The department may utilize its enforcement authorities under RSA 149-M:15 to require abatement of the nuisance or threat if found. The department may enter and inspect any advanced recycling facility to ensure compliance with all applicable statutes and departmental rules relative to air, water, waste, and land use and take any enforcement actions necessary.
II. Products of advanced recycling shall not be considered “waste-derived products” or “refuse-derived fuel” and shall not be subject to the provisions of this chapter and rules created under its authority relating to waste-derived products and refuse-derived fuel, including but limited to the certification provisions of department of environmental services rule Env-Sw 1500.
III. Advanced recycling facilities shall give priority to utilizing post-use polymers and recovered feedstocks generated within the state.
149-M:63 Reporting for Waste Reduction Goals. For the purpose of reporting recycling rates, all advanced recycling facilities shall report the source of post-use polymers including the state or country of origin, the mass of post-use polymer processed, the mass of recycled product, the mass of residual material, and the mass of processed material used for fuel to the department. Recycled product shall not include any residual material, product used for fuel, or non-post-use-polymer feedstock converted to product.
224:11 Effective Date. This act shall take effect 60 days after its passage.
Approved: June 17, 2022
Effective Date: August 16, 2022
| Date | Body | Type |
|---|---|---|
| Feb. 8, 2022 | Senate | Hearing |
| Feb. 24, 2022 | Senate | Floor Vote |
| April 5, 2022 | House | Hearing |
| April 26, 2022 | House | Exec Session |
| House | Floor Vote |
June 22, 2022: Signed by the Governor on 06/17/2022; Chapter 0224; Effective 08/16/2022
June 7, 2022: Enrolled (in recess of) 05/26/2022 HJ 14
June 6, 2022: Enrolled Adopted, VV, (In recess 05/26/2022); SJ 13
June 7, 2022: Enrolled (in recess of) 05/26/2022 HJ 14
June 6, 2022: Enrolled Adopted, VV, (In recess 05/26/2022); SJ 13
May 12, 2022: Sen. Avard Moved to Concur with the House Amendment, MA, VV; 05/12/2022; SJ 12
May 4, 2022: Ought to Pass with Amendment 1899h: MA DV 198-128 05/04/2022 HJ 11
May 4, 2022: FLAM # 1899h (Rep. Bixby): AA VV 05/04/2022 HJ 11
May 4, 2022: Amendment # 1764h: AA VV 05/04/2022 HJ 11
April 27, 2022: Minority Committee Report: Refer for Interim Study
April 27, 2022: Majority Committee Report: Ought to Pass with Amendment # 2022-1764h (Vote 9-7; RC)
April 27, 2022: Executive Session: 04/26/2022 10:00 am LOB 301-303
April 20, 2022: Subcommittee Work Session: 04/26/2022 10:00 am LOB 301-303
April 13, 2022: Subcommittee Work Session: 04/19/2022 01:00 pm LOB 301-303
April 7, 2022: Subcommittee Work Session: 04/12/2022 02:00 pm LOB 301-303
March 29, 2022: Public Hearing: 04/05/2022 11:20 am LOB 301-303
March 23, 2022: Introduced 03/17/2022 and referred to Environment and Agriculture
Feb. 24, 2022: Ought to Pass with Amendment 2022-0789s, MA, VV; OT3rdg; 02/24/2022; SJ 4
Feb. 24, 2022: Committee Amendment # 2022-0789s, AA, VV; 02/24/2022; SJ 4
Feb. 22, 2022: Committee Report: Ought to Pass with Amendment # 2022-0789s, 02/24/2022; SC 8A
Feb. 2, 2022: Hearing: 02/08/2022, Room 103, SH, 09:30 am; SC 6
Dec. 17, 2021: To Be Introduced 01/05/2022 and Referred to Energy and Natural Resources; SJ 1