Several years after the State of California first sued Walmart over the alleged unlawful disposal of e-scrap, hazardous and medical waste to municipal landfills, a multimillion-dollar settlement is before the judge.
California Attorney General Rob Bonta announced the settlement in late October, noting that it requires Walmart to pay $7.5 million in penalties and costs and comply with injunctive terms, which include hiring an independent, third-party auditor to conduct three annual rounds of waste audits at its facilities throughout California over the next four years.
The auditor must use specific requirements set forth in the settlement and then share the audit results with the Attorney General’s Office, the Department of Toxic Substances Control and the dozen district attorneys involved in the settlement. Sam’s Club locations are exempt from the terms of the injunctive relief provisions, the final judgment text noted.
The parties had been set to go to trial on Sept. 30.
Bonta said in a statement that as a result of the investigation and lawsuit, Walmart “has taken significant steps to prevent such disposals from happening in the future.” As part of the settlement, Walmart does not admit any wrongdoing or liability connected to the allegations.
San Joaquin County District Attorney Ron Freitas, who is also involved in the suit, added that “with this settlement, Walmart has demonstrated its understanding of the critical importance of environmental responsibility by taking meaningful steps to address concerns and ensure compliance with state standards.”
A Walmart spokesperson said in a statement the retail giant is “pleased that the state of California recognizes in this settlement that Walmart’s goal is ‘to advance the protection of the health and safety of the people of California and the protection of the environment.'”
“The fact that the settlement agreement requires Walmart to ‘maintain’ our pre-existing waste compliance program is a testament to the strength of the compliance program we have built, and the settlement agreement itself recognizes that Walmart’s program is extremely effective at keeping allegedly hazardous waste out of public landfills,” the statement added. “We appreciate that the government agencies have recognized that Walmart strives to safeguard both the environment and the people of California.”
The suit began in 2021, when the state said more than 70 inspections between 2015 and 2021 found hazardous waste, including discarded electronics, medical waste and/or customer records containing personally identifiable information, in compactors in Alameda, Fresno, Monterey, Napa, Orange, Riverside, Sacramento, San Bernardino, San Diego, San Joaquin, Santa Clara, Tulare, Yolo and Yuba counties.
The press release announcing the settlement also called out “thousands of containers of toxic aerosols and liquid wastes including spray paints, rust removers, bleach, pesticides, and medical waste, such as over-the-counter drugs.”
The lawsuit alleged that Walmart violated the state’s Hazardous Waste Control Law, data security laws and more.
The state and Walmart had previously reached a settlement in 2010 over hazardous waste disposal that had Walmart pay $25 million and agree to compliance with disposal laws.
The proposed settlement noted that post-filing waste audits of compactors between September 2023 and March 2024 demonstrated “substantial improvement” and that “in the course of litigation, Walmart asserted that its program successfully diverts from its solid waste compactors nearly 100 percent of alleged hazardous or medical waste generated through its operations.”
