Get Morning Report and other email newsletters

Get Morning Report and other email newsletters

Get ready to stop throwing those apple cores and egg shells in the trash, as California embarks on a statewide composting mandate.

If you’re like the state’s top recycling official, the new rules will mean keeping a bucket under the sink for food waste. If you don’t have your own compost pile but have a green yard-waste bin from your hauler, that’s where it will go. There will be recycling station sorting for residents without green-bin service as the law phases in next year.

“This is the single fastest and easiest thing each of us can do to address climate change,” said Rachel Wagoner, the director of CalRecycle and owner of a compost pail in her kitchen.

Methane emissions — such as those from organic waste at landfills — are 84 times more potent than carbon dioxide as a greenhouse gas. While methane doesn’t stick around in the atmosphere nearly as long as the carbon dioxide emitted by cars and trucks, its short-term impact is dramatic.

About half of all landfill trash in the state is organic waste, according to CalRecycle. It’s responsible for 20% of the state’s methane emissions, making organic waste the third largest source of methane, trailing only bovine flatulence and burping (30%) and dairy manure (25%). Regulators are cracking down on those emissions as well.

As for organic waste, state rules call for cities and counties to have reduction plans in place by Jan. 1, with local jurisdictions and haulers enacting those plans throughout 2022. The target is a 75% reduction by 2025. Wagoner said hitting that goal would provide the same greenhouse gas relief as removing 1.7 million cars from the road.

Eventually, there will be inspections to ensure that local jurisdictions — and their residents — are doing their part, with the possibility of fines for cities and agencies that don’t comply. But at the moment, the focus is on getting everybody headed in the right direction.

“I’m less concerned about penalties than helping our partners get programs in place,” Wagoner said. “We’ve had a lot of good connections with cities to get this going.”

Rows of green waste called windrows are spread out on the 18-acre pad at the new composting operation at the Frank R. Bowerman Landfill in Irvine on Wednesday, December 1, 2021. The windrows allow for aerobic process for the decomposition of the organic material which uses microorganisms and oxygen resulting in greatly reduced methane production at the landfill. Each windrow approximately 50-feet long, 12-feet wide and 8-feet high. (Photo by Leonard Ortiz, Orange County Register/SCNG)

OC Waste & Recycling workers watch as decomposed green waste comes out of screener machine at the new composting operation at the Frank R. Bowerman Landfill in Irvine on Wednesday, December 1, 2021. The Edge TRT 622 screener machine will separate material smaller and larger than 3/8-inch into separate piles. (Photo by Leonard Ortiz, Orange County Register/SCNG)

Tim Martinez, a lead maintenance worker with OC Waste & Recycling, displays a handful of green waste that is in the process of decomposition at the new composting operation at the Frank R. Bowerman Landfill in Irvine on Wednesday, December 1, 2021. (Photo by Leonard Ortiz, Orange County Register/SCNG)

A worker with OC Waste & Recycling watches as a screening machine separates decomposed green waste at the new composting operation at the Frank R. Bowerman Landfill in Irvine on Wednesday, December 1, 2021. The Edge TRT 622 screener machine will separate material smaller and larger than 3/8-inch into separate piles to be used for compost. This pile is composed of pieces smaller than 3/8-inch. (Photo by Leonard Ortiz, Orange County Register/SCNG)

A front loader piles green waste into long rows called windrows on the 18-acre pad at the new composting operation at the Frank R. Bowerman Landfill in Irvine on Wednesday, December 1, 2021. The windrows allow for aerobic process for the decomposition of the organic material which uses microorganisms and oxygen resulting in greatly reduced methane production at the landfill. Each windrow approximately 50-feet long, 12-feet wide and 8-feet high. (Photo by Leonard Ortiz, Orange County Register/SCNG)

A temperature probe placed in a pile of green waste to monitor the temperature to assure proper aerobic decomposition of the material at the new composting operation at the Frank R. Bowerman Landfill in Irvine on Wednesday, December 1, 2021. (Photo by Leonard Ortiz, Orange County Register/SCNG)

OC Waste & Recycling workers watch as a front loader dumps decomposed green waste into a screener machine at the new composting operation at the Frank R. Bowerman Landfill in Irvine on Wednesday, December 1, 2021. The Edge TRT 622 screener machine will separate material smaller and larger than 3/8-inch into separate piles. (Photo by Leonard Ortiz, Orange County Register/SCNG)

A front loader turns green waste in rows called windrows on the 18-acre pad at the new composting operation at the Frank R. Bowerman Landfill in Irvine on Wednesday, December 1, 2021. The windrows allow for aerobic process for the decomposition of the organic material which uses microorganisms and oxygen resulting in greatly reduced methane production at the landfill. Each windrow approximately 50-feet long, 12-feet wide and 8-feet high. (Photo by Leonard Ortiz, Orange County Register/SCNG)

A worker keeps an eye on the Mega THOR separator as it processes source-separated organic waste at Republic Services in Anaheim, CA, on Thursday, December 2, 2021. City and county governments must have a plan in place for separate organic waste collection by Jan. 1, as the state seeks to stem the methane emissions it creates in landfills, where it accounts for half of all waste. (Photo by Jeff Gritchen, Orange County Register/SCNG)

Compost centers are just one of the destinations for the anticipated boon in diverted organic waste, but are expected to handle the lion’s share. Local governments and trash haulers are gearing up accordingly.

OC Waste & Recycling in Orange County, for example, has recently opened composting operations at two of its landfills and will open a third in next year. After conferring with cities to determine capacity needs, the county is preparing to handle 1,000 tons of organic waste daily by the end of 2022.

There are already commercial operations that take yard waste from landscapers and tree trimmers, and turn it into the mulch you might buy at Home Depot. The new compost from residential organic waste processed by at least some county operations — including Orange County’s — is expected to be used in parks and other public spaces, and be given away to the public, according to Tom Koutroulis, director of OC Waste & Recycling.

Some of the remaining food waste will go to existing commercial composting operations that currently process yard waste. And some will go to a small but growing number of anaerobic digestion plants that treat the material as biofuel and turn it into energy, such as the state-subsidized CR&R plant in Perris that creates natural gas used by the company’s trash collection trucks.

People can divert part of their food waste stream by putting it in the garbage disposal instead of the trash or green bin, although manufacturers and plumbers warn against putting some food byproducts down the disposal — including egg shells, onion skins and potato peels.

Last but not least, the law requires that by 2025, 20% of edible food that would otherwise end up in the landfill will be recovered. Businesses tasked with redirecting the food, beginning next year, include wholesale food vendors and grocery stores, with hotels, restaurants, large sporting and event venues, and health facilities to be added in 2024. Those efforts will be coordinated with food banks and soup kitchens, which will distribute recovered food to people who otherwise might go hungry.

The law addressing methane emissions and food waste, SB 1383, was passed in 2016 and culminates with the 2025 target for all organic waste. But the food reuse aspect has been in the works for the past four years, with $25 million of CalRecycle grants already awarded to cities and nonprofits to build the program. Wagoner said 145 million meals worth of food have been recovered over that period.

“We’ve had incredible success,” she said, adding that growth potential remains significant because Californians toss away about 8 billion meals a year.

One aspect of SB 1383 hasn’t gotten off to such an impressive start.

While the law called for a 50% reduction in organic waste going to landfills by 2020, the trend has actually grown worse in recent years, with more organics in landfills today than when the law was passed, Wagoner said. That 50% goal was generally seen as a soft target with no mechanisms in place to spur organic waste diversion beyond food reuse.

“We have not made the progress we’ve needed to make, but the programs are just coming online in 2022,” Wagoner said.

That leaves the state with a steep challenge to meet the goal of 75% organic waste diversion by 2025. But Nick Lapis, a lobbyist for Californians Against Waste who helped craft the law, is among those who remain optimistic. He pointed to the broad enforcement powers the law gives to CalRecycle, including $10,000 daily fines for cities not in compliance.

“SB 1383 is much, much stronger than previous recycling bills,” Lapis said.

Additionally, the process of diverting organic waste from landfills might prove easier than similar changes aimed at diverting plastics and other materials.

Related Articles Environment | Fishermen threaten to sue Bureau of Reclamation over Trinity River diversions Environment | At least 1 dead as tornado pummels northern Michigan town Environment | Opinion: Alarming research on pesticide warrants curbs on its use Environment | Letters: Homelessness answers | Vote for Tam | Math lessons | Seven Hills Ranch | Yes on change Environment | Letters: Mahan for mayor | Vote for Kumar | Trash is back | Measure D | Your vote matters California has been scrambling to to better recycle plastics since 2018. That’s when China and other overseas markets stopped buying them from the state, as they reckoned with difficulties in recycling all the imported waste. The state’s efforts to build both an industry to process plastics and a market to reuse the materials have proved daunting.

So while establishing infrastructure for recycling organic waste is a massive undertaking, it’s relatively simple compared to plastic recycling — provided the efforts to educate residents on changing their food waste behavior are successful.

“With recycling, the organic waste component is the lowest hanging fruit,” OC Waste’s Koutroulis said. “It’s the only waste stream that can be collected, processed and reused locally.”

“It creates jobs locally, feeds locally, and provides for local agriculture,” he said. And while residents are likely to eventually see an increase in garbage bills, Lapis added that there is a corresponding savings for society.

“Diverting organic waste is the most cost effective way to deal with climate change.”

Get Morning Report and other email newsletters

We invite you to use our commenting platform to engage in insightful conversations about issues in our community. We reserve the right at all times to remove any information or materials that are unlawful, threatening, abusive, libelous, defamatory, obscene, vulgar, pornographic, profane, indecent or otherwise objectionable to us, and to disclose any information necessary to satisfy the law, regulation, or government request. We might permanently block any user who abuses these conditions.