SUMMARY

In 2016, the State of California enacted Senate Bill (SB) 1383, requiring counties, cities, and other organizations responsible for waste collection to coordinate with their residents to divert organic waste, including food scraps, from the landfill waste disposal stream. Another provision makes jurisdictions responsible for procuring a quantity of the recovered organic waste products resulting from the diversion. The 2023-2024 Orange County Grand Jury (OCGJ) investigated how Orange County jurisdictions are complying with the requirements and goals of SB 1383 that impact single-family residential units.

The investigation revealed that the approaches to meeting SB 1383’s requirements vary greatly from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. The majority of Orange County jurisdictions have not yet distributed residential waste containers that meet the SB 1383 standardization requirements, leaving outdated labeling/embossing in place. Education and outreach have not yet taken place at all in some jurisdictions. Even when information has been disseminated in other jurisdictions, the methods disproportionately favor intermittent paper mailings. Also, the State’s unrealistic targets for the procurement of recycled organic waste products do not account for a jurisdiction’s population density or geographic size, which frequently makes them extremely difficult to meet.

The local enforcement stage of SB 1383 started on January 1, 2024. However, the majority of Orange County jurisdictions are unlikely to meet the SB 1383 targeted seventy-five percent reduction in the amount of organic waste sent to landfills by January 2025.

The OCGJ concludes there is a clear need to improve education and outreach efforts, develop enforcement mechanisms and processes, and to coordinate and collaborate among all jurisdictions to collectively address the challenges and to achieve the goals and targets of SB 1383.

BACKGROUND

Organic waste comprises more than a third of the waste stream in California and includes green waste, wood, food waste, and fibers such as paper and cardboard. When left to decompose in landfills, organic waste releases large amounts of methane gas, which is harmful to the environment (CalRecycle, 2024). In September 2016, SB 1383 set reduction targets in a statewide effort to reduce emissions of Short-Lived Climate Pollutants (SLCP), including methane. Simply put, this required all statewide jurisdictions to implement mandatory organic waste collection and recycling to divert organic waste from landfills. Another key benefit of the diversion of organic and other recyclable materials from landfills is the preservation of overall landfill capacity.

In 2014, the State conducted a random sampling of twenty-six landfills, Material Recovery Facilities (MRF), and Transfer Stations located in twenty-one of California’s fifty-eight counties (none in Orange County). The results were used to establish the baseline for the required reduction in organic waste destined for landfills. SB 1383 then set goals to reduce organic waste sent to landfills below the 2014 baseline by fifty percent no later than January 1, 2020, and seventy-five percent by January 1, 2025. However, despite the law’s requirements, the amount of organic waste sent to landfills statewide actually increased by twenty-three percent above the 2014 baseline (Little Hoover Commission, 2023).