R2v3 Certified Facilities in California

The Electronic Waste Recycling Act of 2003 — SB 20, codified at Public Resources Code §42460 et seq. — established the regime. SB 1215 extended it in 2022 to cover battery-embedded products, with the consumer fee on them payable on and after 1 January 2026.

Sources: CalRecycle, Electronic Waste statutes

The disposal ban is not limited to screens

This is the part most summaries get wrong, because most summaries are written for consumers, and the mistake is to read it as a list of device categories. It is a test. 22 CCR §66273.3(a)(2) provides that discarded electronic devices that are hazardous solely because they exhibit the toxicity characteristic, or are listed in article 4.1 of chapter 11, may be managed as universal waste — and §66273.9 defines an electronic device as one identified as hazardous waste on exactly that basis. The examples it gives are illustrative: computer monitors, televisions, cash registers and oscilloscopes, computers, computer peripherals, telephones, answering machines, radios, stereo equipment, and some appliances. What decides the question for a given asset is whether it fails the characteristic, not whether it appears on that list.

22 CCR §66273.31 prohibits a universal waste handler from disposing of universal waste, and the exception it carries — batteries, thermostats, certain mercury-added items, mercury-containing rubber flooring and photovoltaic modules, which may go to a destination facility for disposal — does not include electronic devices. It binds businesses and households alike, and there is no commercial exemption. Two carve-outs matter for enterprise gear and run in opposite directions: §66273.9 excludes a device comprised largely of metals that qualifies as scrap metal and is recycled, while §66273.3(b)(3) pushes a device exhibiting any characteristic other than toxicity out of universal waste and onto the full hazardous waste route.

Sources: 22 CCR §66273.3 · 22 CCR §66273.9 · 22 CCR §66273.31 · DTSC, Electronic Hazardous Waste

Verification carries a statutory defense, and its shape matters

22 CCR §66273.38(a) prohibits a universal waste handler from sending or taking universal waste anywhere other than another universal waste handler, a destination facility, or a foreign destination. A transporter is not one of them — it is the means of getting to one, not a place the waste may end. Subdivision (d) adds a step most shippers skip: before sending, the originating handler must ensure the receiving handler or destination facility agrees to receive the shipment. And Health and Safety Code §25189.2(e) provides that a person who takes reasonable steps to determine that the transporter is registered under §25163, or that the facility holds a valid permit or authorization, is not liable under that section.

Read the shape of that defense rather than its headline. It reaches subdivisions (c) and (d) only; it defeats liability solely on the basis of having offered the waste and nothing further; and the verb is determine, not verify — reasonable steps toward finding out, not proof. In California, checking your vendor's authorization is not good practice. It is the condition on which a specific statutory defense depends, and the condition is a record of the checking.

Sources: 22 CCR §66273.38 · HSC §25189.2

What you must keep

A business shipping universal waste offsite is a universal waste handler. Universal waste does not require a hazardous waste manifest — 22 CCR §66273.52(a) says so directly — and §66273.39(c) accepts a log, invoice, bill of lading or manifest as the record. The record itself is not optional. For each shipment sent offsite you must keep the name and address of the receiving handler or destination facility, the quantity of each type of universal waste, and the date the shipment left, and §66273.39(d)(2) requires it retained at least three years from that date of departure.

There is no small-quantity relief from that record. §66273.39 sets no floor and none of the accumulation or reporting thresholds below excuses it — one shipment is still a shipment that has to be written down.

Sources: 22 CCR §66273.39 · 22 CCR §66273.52

The thresholds, and one of them is not the EPA's. Under 22 CCR §66273.32(a)(1) a handler must obtain an identification number before accumulating 5,000 kilograms (roughly 11,000 lb) or more of universal waste at any one time — and §66273.32(b) provides that where the universal waste is not regulated under RCRA, that number comes from DTSC rather than from US EPA. Separately, §66273.32(d)(2) requires a handler that generates 5,000 kilograms or more of electronic devices, CRTs and CRT glass calculated collectively in a calendar year to submit an annual report to DTSC by 1 February of the following year. The regulation puts that at about 200 CRTs.

Sources: 22 CCR §66273.32

Penalties

The two civil routes are alternatives rather than a stack. HSC §25189.2(c) sets a penalty of up to $70,000 for each violation, with each day the deposit remains a separate additional violation — unless the person immediately files a report of the deposit with the department and is complying with an order to abate. HSC §25189(c) covers intentional disposal at $1,000 to $70,000 per violation, each day counting separately for as long as the person has knowledge of the deposit, and §25189(d) covers negligent disposal at up to $70,000. §25189.2(f) then provides that a person is not liable under both sections for the same act or failure to act.

Criminal exposure under HSC §25189.5(b) is imprisonment in county jail for not more than one year or in state prison under Penal Code §1170(h) — two alternatives, so “up to a year” understates it. §25189.5(e) requires the court to impose a fine of $5,000 to $100,000 for each day of violation. A further tier of up to $250,000 a day, plus one, two or three years consecutive, applies where the act caused great bodily injury or a substantial probability that death could result — and that tier is discretionary. The mandatory figure is the $100,000.

Sources: HSC §25189 · HSC §25189.2 · HSC §25189.5

On the data — and California is different here

California has a mandatory records-destruction statute, which most states do not. Civil Code §1798.81: “A business shall take all reasonable steps to dispose, or arrange for the disposal, of customer records within its custody or control containing personal information when the records are no longer to be retained by the business by (a) shredding, (b) erasing, or (c) otherwise modifying the personal information in those records to make it unreadable or undecipherable through any means.”

And Civil Code §1798.84(b) gives the customer a private right of action: “Any customer injured by a violation of this title may institute a civil action to recover damages.” In most states a records-disposal failure is enforced by the Attorney General. In California, an individual whose records were improperly disposed of can sue your business directly. Damages is what the subdivision provides — the per-violation civil penalties in §1798.84(c) attach to §1798.83, a different section about disclosure of personal information to third parties, and not to the disposal duty.

Sources: Civil Code §1798.81 · Civil Code §1798.84

Breach notification is separate, under Civil Code §1798.82 — expedient disclosure without unreasonable delay. Where a single breach requires notifying more than 500 California residents, §1798.82(f) requires the business to submit a single sample copy of the notification electronically to the Attorney General, stripped of personally identifiable information, within 15 calendar days of notifying the affected consumers.

Sources: Civil Code §1798.82

The gap nobody budgets for

California's fee program does not pay for your equipment. The Advance Recycling Fee funds the Covered Electronic Waste program, and Public Resources Code §42463(g)(1)(A) sets out what that covers: a video display device containing a screen greater than four inches, measured diagonally. §42463(g)(2)(B) then excludes a video display device contained within, or part of, a piece of industrial, commercial or medical equipment.

Servers, storage arrays, network switches and headless workstations are not covered. A business funds the disposition of its enterprise infrastructure entirely itself, while remaining fully subject to the disposal ban and the daily penalty exposure. One thing is changing, and not in that direction: SB 1215 added covered battery-embedded products at §42463(g)(1)(B), which carry no screen-size test at all — the consumer fee on them is payable on and after 1 January 2026, and the manufacturer notice duty ran from 1 July 2025.

Sources: CalRecycle, Covered Electronic Waste program · PRC §42463

Where this page's regulatory citations come from

The statutes above are read from the Legislature's own text at leginfo.legislature.ca.gov, which is primary. The regulations are not. California publishes the California Code of Regulations through a Westlaw portal that returns no rule text to anything but an interactive browser, and DTSC's own rule PDFs refuse non-browser requests outright. The 22 CCR sections cited here were read on Cornell's Legal Information Institute, which is a secondary publisher.

We say so rather than letting the citation imply we read the official text. Where a 22 CCR provision below carries weight — the toxicity test, the disposal prohibition, the destination rule, the 5,000-kilogram thresholds — it is quoted closely enough that you can check it against the official version yourself, and you should before relying on it.

Sources: 22 CCR §66273.3 · 22 CCR §66273.9

Two agencies, and they do different things. DTSC, within CalEPA, regulates and enforces hazardous and universal waste handling, storage, transport and recycling — that is the enforcement side. CalRecycle administers the Covered Electronic Waste payment system, approves collectors and recyclers, and enforces manufacturer compliance under the 2003 Act.

Sources: DTSC, Electronic Hazardous Waste · CalRecycle, Electronic Waste statutes

California is one of the few states with a genuine approved-vendor registry. CalRecycle publishes a directory of approved collectors and recyclers, and an eRecycle look-up.

Sources: CalRecycle, approved collectors and recyclers directory · CalRecycle, eRecycle look-up

That registry answers a different question than R2v3 does, and both matter. CalRecycle approval means a facility is authorized to accept covered e-waste and claim state recovery payments. R2v3 appendix scope tells you what it can actually do to a drive.

A facility can hold one without the other. This directory does not currently cross-reference the two, so a listing here is not a statement about CalRecycle approval either way — check the CalRecycle directory separately.

Sources: CalRecycle, Covered Electronic Waste program