We are already recycling plastic, glass, paper and yard clippings. Now we will soon add food to the list.
State law (SB 1383) went into effect January 1, 2022, is designed to reduce methane emissions that can occur when food waste ends up in landfills. Under the new law, food scraps will be recycled and used for compost. The City of Huntington Beach is working with the City’s refuse provider, Republic Services, to develop an organics recycling program to begin later this year. In the coming months, the City will be providing information to residents, businesses, and restaurants on how to collect their food waste and deposit it in their green waste container instead of their trash.
In addition to food waste recycling, the new law also sets a statewide goal of recovering 20 percent of excess edible food from restaurants, hospitals, hotels and supermarkets to be sent to food banks. CalRecycle estimates that Californians send 11.2 billion pounds of food to landfills each year and some of that food can go to help the nearly-one-in-four Californians who don’t know where their next meal is coming from. Locally, Huntington Beach will be expanding our existing edible food recovery program to help meet the statewide target.
Like other cities, Huntington Beach has been working closely with CalRecycle and keeping them informed of the City’s status on implementation of an organics recycling program. The City anticipates having an organics recycling program fully implemented by the second half of 2022. While it is expected that refuse rates will increase as a result of this added program, the exact cost is still being worked out with Republic.
The City will be providing more information in the coming weeks and months.
