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SB 1383: CalRecycle Organics Regulations

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What is SB 1383?

Helpful Resources

Why is SB 1383 Important?

The City of Davis and SB 1383 Implementation

 Information For Businesses

Information for Property Managers

 Edible Food Recovery

 Recycling and Organic Waste Waivers 

Commission and Council Discussions on SB 1383 Implementation

Submit a Concern About a Potential Violation

What is SB 1383?

In September 2016, the State set methane emission reduction targets for California in Senate Bill 1383, intended as a statewide effort to reduce emissions of short-lived climate pollutants (like organic waste) in various sectors of California’s economy.

SB 1383 establishes statewide targets to reduce the amount of organic waste disposed of in landfills (50% reduction by 2020 and 75% by 2025). It also sets a goal to rescue at least 20% of currently disposed edible food by 2025 and redirect that food to people in need.

From 2016-2020, the California Department of Resources, Recycling and Recovery (CalRecycle) worked to develop regulations to achieve the goals of SB 1383. These new regulations were finalized by CalRecycle in November 2020 and took effect in January 2022. Per State law, the City is required to issue a Notice of Violation for non-compliance with the SB 1383 regulations after January 1, 2024 and must assess fines if the violations are not cleared within 60 days.

 What is Organic Waste? The state defines “Organic waste” as food, landscape and pruning trimmings, lumber, wood, manure, cardboard, paper products, printing and writing paper, and other plant and animal-based products.

Helpful Resources

Information for Businesses

Information for Residents

Why is SB 1383 Important?

The State has committed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, improve human health, and create clean jobs that support resilient local economies. Implementing the statewide plan under SB 1383 will reduce short-lived, harmful, super pollutants with significant warming impacts and is essential to achieving California’s climate goals.

Organic waste in landfills emit 20% of the state’s methane, a climate super pollutant 84 times more potent than carbon dioxide. Organic waste, such as food scraps, yard trimmings, paper and cardboard, make up half of what Californians send to landfills. 

 

 business  house  edible food
Working in Davis
Information for businesses, schools, and multi-family properties 		Living in Davis
Information for single-family and multi-family customers 		Edible Food Recovery
Information for grocery stores, large restaurants and other generators of edible food

 

The City of Davis and SB 1383 Implementation

Fortunately Davis, is already well on the way toward compliance with SB 1383 due to the introduction of mandatory organics waste collection in 2016. However, there are many other parts of SB 1383 that have taken work to develop and implement. In 2021 the City developed a SB 1383 Implementation Plan, a roadmap of options for how the City might look to address any gaps to meeting the requirements of the various portions of the new regulations.

charts of SB 1383 elements

The chart to the right shows the six main elements of the SB 1383 regulations that apply to the City of Davis. Some aspects of these elements are explained briefly below along with the City’s current status and potential next steps. Please note that the full text of the regulations is 126 pages—below is a simplified summary of some of the major components only. The full regulations can be found here: https://www2.calrecycle.ca.gov/Docs/Web/118371

  • Organics and Recycling Collection. One of the main requirements, ensuring that all residents and business have access to recycling and organics collection, has been in place in Davis since July 2016. SB 1383 requires specific colors for waste collection containers: trash containers must be grey or black, organics containers must be green, and recycling containers must be blue. All new containers must be clearly labeled with what does and does not go into them.
    • Davis already has recycling and organics collection available to all customers, but not all of the containers meet the new color requirements. Single-family trash carts are grey and Recology Davis has already been repainting commercial trash bins grey. However, as of December 2021, our organics carts have brown lids, commercial recycling carts are green, and single-family recycling carts are blue and black lidded. While the City does not need to replace all of the existing waste containers until 2036, any new container purchased after January 1, 2022 and provided to City customers must be color compliant. The City plans to slowly phase in the updated single-family cart colors as replacement is needed and replace all multi-family and commercial carts sometime in the near future. Some of the new colored carts are already out in our community! Recology has begun to purchase color-complaint containers as needed to replace aging and broken ones.
  • Contamination Monitoring The regulations require waste audits to be conducted on each trash, recycling, and organics route regularly, to check bins for contamination (recycling and organics not being sorted correctly). Specific recording, reporting and follow-up is required for any contamination that is found.
    • The City has started route monitoring to fulfill SB 1383 requirements.
  • Education and Outreach. SB 1383 regulations will require the City to conduct specific outreach to residents, schools, businesses, edible food generators, on an annual basis. The outreach must be translated into multiple languages, based on the most recent census results.
    • The City does already provides annual outreach to these groups regarding waste sorting and recycling. The City has modified its outreach program to ensure that every aspect follows the language, timing and translation requirements of SB 1383.
  • Capacity Planning. The City must collaborate with the County and the other jurisdictions located within the county to determine the necessary organic waste recycling and edible food recovery capacity needed to divert organic waste and edible food from the landfill as required under the regulations.
    • The City has a waste flow agreement with Yolo County that allows Recology Davis to bring all the organic waste collected in Davis to the Yolo County Central Landfill composting facilities. The communities within Yolo County have a robust food recovery network via a number of organizations. Yolo County staff completed a Food Recovery Capacity Study and Funding Assessment and all Yolo County jurisdictions are working together to create a county-wide food recovery network. 
  • Procurement Requirements. The City must annually procure a certain quantity of recovered organic waste products. Jurisdictions can fulfill their target by procuring any combination of eligible products such as compost, mulch, and renewable energy. The subsequent passage of AB 1985 gives jurisdictions an additional two years to comply with the organic waste product procurement requirements of SB 1383. The City is also required to purchase recycled-content paper.
    • The City has had a purchasing policy in place for years that requires the purchasing of recycled-content paper. The City does use some compost in parks and greenbelts and is continuing to review options for the City to meet the additional procurement quantity for recovered organic waste products.
  • Edible Food Recovery. The City must identify the edible food recovery generators that are required to implement edible food recovery programs, connect them with local food recovery organizations, provide annual outreach to the edible food generators about their requirements under SB 1383 and perform annual inspections to ensure they have contracts in place with edible food recovery organizations, and are keeping records of all recovered edible food.
    • Yolo County completed a Food Recover Capacity Study and Funding Assessment and all Yolo County jurisdictions are working together to create a county-wide food recovery network, connecting edible food recovery generators with local food recovery organizations, providing outreach to the edible food generators about their requirements under SB 1383 and performing annual inspections to ensure they have contracts in place with edible food recovery organizations and are keeping records of all recovered edible food.

Commission and Council Discussions on SB 1383 Implementation

Natural Resources Commission

Social Services Commission

Utilities Commission

City Council

More information on SB 1383 is available on CalRecycle webpage: https://www.calrecycle.ca.gov/organics/slcp 

Submit a Concern About a Potential Violation

The City actively works to provide information and assistance to customers to help them achieve and maintain compliance with solid waste regulations, including the requirements of SB 1383. Adapting to new rules and regulations can take time, and the City (by policy) approaches each violation or potential violation with an education-first approach when possible. However, starting in January 2024, State law requires the City to distribute Notices of Violation for any violation of SB 1383. To ensure that everyone can benefit from information on compliance, especially those who may not have a full understanding of the law, SB 1383 requires jurisdictions to provide customers with a method to provide an anonymous complaint about a potential violation of the SB 1383 regulations. The My Davis service request system can be used to submit an anonymous concern or complaint about a potential violation of the SB 1383 regulations. Customers can also submit complaints and concerns about potential violations to PWWeb@CityofDavis.org, 530-757-5686, or by mail to City of Davis Public Works Utilities and Operations, Attn: Solid Waste Program, 1717 5th Street, Davis CA 95616.