A plastic bottle sits at the water’s edge at Erckenbrack Park Beach on June 23, 2022, in Foster City, Calif.

Gov. Gavin Newsom has signed a sweeping plastic-reduction measure that aims to dramatically shrink the amount of disposable packaging and food ware that Californians use in their daily lives.

The bill, SB54, is the result of a breakthrough legislative deal between some environmentalists, business groups and waste haulers, a last-minute compromise that led proponents to withdraw an anti-plastic waste initiative from the November ballot.

SB54 will require plastic manufacturers to ensure that plastic packaging and food ware items — such as cups, straws and takeout containers — are recyclable or reusable. Manufacturers will also be required to reduce the amount of plastic they create in the first place.

“California won’t tolerate plastic waste that’s filling our waterways and making it harder to breathe,” Newsom said in a statement. “We’re holding polluters responsible and cutting plastics at the source.”

The governor signed the bill after both the state Senate and Assembly voted to approve it by more than a two-thirds majority, a striking outcome after bills targeting single-use plastics have repeatedly died at the state Capitol in recent years amid fierce opposition from plastics and oil industry groups.

SB54 upended that stalemate and was supported by several major business associations. Legislators cheered the bill as a bold move to combat an avalanche of plastic waste that is wreaking havoc on ocean habitats, polluting the environment more broadly and piling up in landfills.

“This is the product of a painstaking compromise,” said state Sen. Ben Allen, a Santa Monica Democrat who wrote SB54. “There’s still so much work to be done here as we try to address this major environmental challenge.”

But some environmentalists held their nose in supporting the bill, which they said was watered down to favor some industry players. A few dozen groups opposed the final bill because they said it has a potential carve-out that could help plastics companies skirt recycling targets by essentially burning plastic.

The deal came together at the last possible minute as Thursday was the deadline to remove initiatives from the November ballot.

Three residents whose names were used to formally put the initiative on the ballot had earlier objected to the bill. But they agreed to withdraw the ballot measure if the bill became law, after Allen made a flurry of amendments in the last week designed to ease the concerns of a wide swath of environmental groups.

“It’s really wonderful that this got resolved legislatively,” said Coastal Commissioner Linda Escalante, one of the three ballot initiative signatories. “To me, this was a perfect example of the initiative process working.”

Still, some environmental groups said the final version didn’t go far enough to remove industry-friendly language. They said the bill’s definition of recycling could allow companies to use certain types of “chemical recycling,” the process of burning plastic trash to convert it into fossil fuel or chemicals. Such facilities are often located in low-income communities.

“We simply cannot burn plastic in our environmental justice communities as a solution to the over-consumption of plastic by our society,” a coalition of 21 environmental groups wrote in a letter to lawmakers.

Allen attempted to quell those concerns by writing a legislative intent letter, which was released after the bill passed, reiterating that SB54 specifically bans so-called forms of recycling that “involve combustion and incineration” or that produce fuel or hazardous waste. His office said Allen also plans to write a clean-up bill to clarify the issue.

Judith Enck, founder of the advocacy group Beyond Plastics and former regional administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, said she’s concerned that the follow-up bill won’t materialize and that the letter won’t hold weight in court because the bill doesn’t ban some types of chemical recycling. She said the final version of SB54 came together with “virtually no transparency.”

“This is when legislative mistakes are made, when things are done mostly behind closed doors,” she said. “A wiser move would have been to do the ballot initiative and then have the Legislature come back.”

But supporters of the bill worried that taking the issue to the ballot could be risky, even though polling shows strong public support for anti-plastic measures.

Those concerns were heightened last week after two large plastic companies poured millions into the campaign to defeat the ballot measure: Dow Inc., which sells chemicals used to make plastic, contributed $10 million and Dart Container Corporation, which manufacturers Styrofoam, contributed $1 million.

That said, many environmental groups cheered SB54 as a landmark step to confront the plastic pollution crisis.

“Senate Bill 54 raises the bar for state and national action to reduce industry's single-use plastic habit,” said Christy Leavitt, plastics campaign director for Oceana, a wildlife advocacy group. “It's time for the plastics industry to stop using a material that lasts forever to make products that are used once and thrown away.”

The bill requires, by 2032, that manufacturers distributing plastic packaging and food ware ensure their products can either be recycled, composted or reused. Companies will also be required to make sure that 65% of those disposable plastic items are recycled or composted by the same year.

Plastics companies that do business in California will be required to create a producer responsibility organization to oversee how the bill is implemented, with oversight from CalRecycle, the state’s recycling agency.

Another key provision of SB54 requires manufacturers to source-reduce 25% of the amount of single-use plastic packaging and food ware they distribute in the state by 2032. In other words, the companies have to replace a quarter of those plastic products with disposable materials that can be recycled, such as paper or glass, or reusable containers.

The Ocean Conservancy, an environmental group supporting the bill, estimated SB54 will prevent nearly 23 million tons of single-use plastic items from being distributed or sold in California over the next decade — that amounts to nearly 26 times the weight of the Golden Gate Bridge.

Plastic use has skyrocketed around the world in recent decades: More than 14 million tons of plastic flows into the ocean every year, according to a report from the International Union for Conservation of Nature. Less than 9% of plastic is recycled in the U.S., and the material doesn’t biodegrade in nature.

SB54 also requires plastic manufacturers to help foot the bill for cleaning up plastic trash polluting the environment. Starting in 2027, they would pay $500 million per year over 10 years in mitigation fees to fund efforts like cleanups on beaches and in low-income communities.

But the bill is different than the ballot measure in some significant ways. The ballot initiative would have required plastic packaging and food ware to be recyclable or compostable by 2030, two years earlier than the bill.

In addition, the ballot measure would prohibit food vendors, including restaurants and grocery stores, from using Styrofoam takeout containers. The bill doesn’t ban Styrofoam, but supporters said it includes a “de facto ban” because Styrofoam would be prohibited unless the industry can achieve a 25% recycling rate by 2025, and the material generally cannot be recycled.

Enck, the former EPA regional administrator, said she’s worried that Styrofoam companies will rely on chemical recycling to meet that goal unless a strong clean-up bill follows SB54.

“This was not a drafting error,” she said. “If chemical recycling is allowed, you’re just going to see more plastic burning. And that would be a giant step backwards for California.”

Dustin Gardiner (he/him) is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: dustin.gardiner@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @dustingardiner

Dustin Gardiner is a state Capitol reporter for The San Francisco Chronicle. He joined The Chronicle in 2019, after nearly a decade with The Arizona Republic, where he covered state and city politics. Dustin won several awards for his reporting in Arizona, including the 2019 John Kolbe Politics Reporting award, and the 2017 Story of the Year award from the Arizona Newspapers Association. Outside of work, he enjoys hiking, camping, reading fiction and playing Settlers of Catan. He's a member of NLGJA, the association of LGBTQ journalists.