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To be fair, if we waited until there "no more pressing issues", then we'd never get any "quality of life" regulations passed like this.

I don’t think it’s a nothing law. Not only does it help with reducing waste, but also a food safety thing. “Best by” or “best is used by” or “expiry dates” are pretty clear: use the product before the date.

In my own case, we have a brand of bread that does “sell by”. There is not uniform standard on how many days after the date, the bread is safe to consume. Internet wisdom gives you a wide range.

Well despite all that regulation, they're an economic powerhouse, they must be doing something right. CA is far from perfect but at least they occasionally aspire to do something for the benefit of their citizens - not something I can say for my 'least regulated' state that mostly just saps money from the federal government.

Because of the power CA has, many of the regulations they pass around health and safety end up benefiting other states because it's cheaper to simply implement it nationwide.

Regulations aren't fungible, so this is not a particularly meaningful perspective.

Is there a reason to think these should or should not scale with size of population?

All of them? No. Some of them? Yes.

Some examples:

* ARL / Automatic Renewal Law: If a company allows you to sign up for a subscription online, they also must provide an immediate, straightforward way to cancel it online.

* SB 478: No bullshit junk fees tacked on to prices. Any price displayed, be it for concerts, hotels, or whatever else, must be the full, out-the-door price.

* SB 244: Right to Repair: Electronics and appliance manufacturers must make diagnostic tools, manuals etc available for at least 7 years after manufacture.

I hope they refactor and harmonize them at some point to reduce duplication, contradiction as well as proliferation.

I'm pretty sure food producers are the ones putting the "sell by" labels on stuff, with the hope that people will needlessly throw away food and buy more because of that label.

They don't want grocery stores to carry product that's too old because customers will try it and decide they don't like it, not realizing that it's old. And a grocery store worker won't know when to get rid of it unless someone tells them.

And from a grocery store's point of view, product that's on the shelf too long isn't selling. It's taking up space that could be used for something else.

Presumably food producers benefit if people throw things out earlier, as they will buy more ?

The only water problems are for farmers growing in a semi-arid valley. California has droughts, not water shortages.

"Sell by" is instead replaced with clearer, more standardized wording. Please at least read the (very short) article before posting.

Did you read what they are replacing it with? I.e., "best if used by" (indicating the time the item is at its best quality), "best if frozen by", and "use by" (indicating when the food is and isn't safe to eat). Because those seem much more clear and useful to me than the useless "sell by" date.

The explanation is in the subtitle. Didn't even have to read the article on this one.