The article doesn’t specify a law that was violated. Is this something made up on the fly by the courts?
Reportedly, there is a california law which forbids people from recycling materials, cans, bottles, that were brought in from outside the state.
If one buys a can of soda in California from any California merchant, it may be redeemed. But if one buys a can of soda in the state of Arizona, for example, but attempts to redeem the can in California, that’s against the law. That’s my understanding of their law.
How they enforce it, I don’t know. I imagine most people get away with it. But this was too big of an operation to go unnoticed.