Composting Is Coming: A New Law to Reduce Organic Waste Goes Into Effect This Year

Organic waste reduction is the focus of a sprawling piece of state legislation with several key provisions due to go into effect this year. SB 1383, which is administered by CalRecycle, requires jurisdictions to reduce organic waste by drastically cutting down on the amount of edible food and food-based waste that goes into the landfill and causes methane gas pollution.

Solid waste haulers will be responsible for making sure their customers know what goes into the green bins, and starting in 2024, jurisdictions will be expected to start enforcing local ordinances. There is also a provision that mandates diverting edible food waste from the landfill by donating it to food recovery organizations, like soup kitchens. Jurisdictions will also have to satisfy a procurement requirement to buy a certain amount of recycled material or energy, depending on their populations.

Cold Creek Compost, of Potter Valley in Mendocino County, has been composting organic waste since 1995. “It’s my baby,” said founder Martin Mileck, who started the facility to comply with AB 939, which was a local, rather than a statewide, mandate to divert organic waste.

Cold Creek currently has organic waste contracts with Mendocino county and the cities, as well as a few in Lake and Sonoma counties. The company is currently permitted to process 50,000 tons of material per year, and is applying for permits to increase its capacity by 40%. Sean O’Rourke, who handles the business’ licensing and permitting procedures, reflected that “SB 1383 will be a game-changer for the industry.” He added that it takes tens of millions of dollars to build a compost facility that’s equipped to handle food waste. Composting requires a lot of labor and equipment, and the equipment has to meet air quality standards, as do the facilities themselves, which can cause odors and pollution and even fires, if they are not managed properly. Cold Creek Compost has been in the permitting process to build a second facility in Sonoma County for about five years.

Tom Mattson, the director of Public Works in Humboldt County, says that is typical. The infrastructure to process large-scale food waste in the state is “basically nonexistent,” he noted. The state goal is a 75% reduction in organic waste by 2025, which comes out to more than 20 million tons per year. That means that across the state, 50-100 more facilities will have to start processing compost out of organic waste that includes food scraps. Many counties, including Humboldt, have facilities that are equipped to process green waste like lawn and plant clippings, but rotting food waste requires complicated permits from water and air quality boards.

The only thing currently available in Humboldt, which trucks its garbage to Oregon due to the lack of a landfill, are anaerobic digesters at some of the cities’ wastewater treatment plants. Eureka, Arcata, and Fortuna, three of the county’s seven cities, can process food scraps as well as material that the public is often squeamish about using in private yards or public parks.

Mattson said the cities and the unincorporated county are probably equipped to process about 25,000 tons of organic waste a year, and that large quantities will likely have to be trucked a long way to be processed. The county has hired a consultant, Edgar Evans and Associates, to help work out a number of details, including a cost-benefit analysis of using fossil fuels to cut down on waste and pollution. As long as the county can continue to show the state that it is making substantial progress in getting a program going, he expects the state will continue to grant extensions. But if the county has adopted an ordinance by April or June, it will be eligible for the first or second round of grant funding for the purpose.

In Mendocino County, Amber Fisette, the Deputy Director of Transportation overseeing the Solid Waste Division, says the county is on track, when it comes to composting facilities that take food scraps. In addition to Cold Creek Compost, she divulged that CNS Waste Solutions is building a second facility near the transfer station in Ukiah. “Within the next few months, we’ll have two fully permitted composting facilities within the county, which most counties are not lucky enough to have,” she anticipated. “So capacity shouldn’t be an issue for us.”

Fisette added that satisfying the procurement requirement, which essentially guarantees that facilities won’t end up sitting on their expensively generated material, is still a work in progress. While the law does allow counties to purchase sustainable energy instead of or in addition to processed organic material, “Unfortunately, in Mendocino County, our only options really are compost and mulch, and we are still working on how to implement the use of those products into our projects and our normal activities to meet our target. So that’s something that we’re not as far along on, but we’re going to be working on in the near future,” she said.

In Humboldt County, Mattson has an optimistic eye on solar and wind energy projects, though the consultant is working on the details of that aspect of the program, as well. He noted that the county already meets its requirements for recycled paper content.

Sean O’Rourke from Cold Creek noted that Zero Waste Sonoma is offering a rebate program to help people purchase compost, “Which will help go toward their procurement requirements. Because if they were to purchase compost down in Sonoma, based on their population, I think they’re looking at 20- 22,000 tons annually. And that’s a large amount of material.”

Mattson said Humboldt County does not yet have an ordinance in place for diverting edible food waste by donating it to organizations that serve hungry people, but that many businesses are already diverting a significant amount of waste by donating it to farms for animal consumption.

Areas with low population density can apply for waivers. Parts of Mendocino County are exempt from the requirements until 2027, and Mattson said the vast majority of Humboldt County outside of the Humboldt Bay is exempt, too. This poses some logistical puzzles for waste-hauling contractors, who may find themselves serving a “split franchise,” or an area where some parts are meeting the requirements years ahead of other parts. 

Much of the education and enforcement of the new ordinances will be the responsibility of the haulers. Fisette said the Mendocino County Board of Supervisors approved a county contract with a hauler last month. The county is also in the process of developing an ordinance that she expects will be adopted in the next few months, in time to be eligible for the first round of state grant funding. The county has also signed a fully SB 1383-compliant contract with a waste hauler for the largest franchise area in the county. The contract “includes collection, and outreach and education, and enforcement…many of the requirements that we have to comply with are in that contract, as the responsibility of the contractor,” she reported.

As for Mileck, who faced stiff opposition when he first started composting commercially, he thinks it’s about time recycling food waste became a way of life. “I’ve been doing this since before it was required by the government,” he recalled. “And my thoughts were, why isn’t this being done? This is cheaper than landfilling.”