Access To Composting Is A Privilege And What You Can Do To Change It

This is a momentous time for California’s waste and recycling industry. AB 32, AB 1826 and SB 1383 are forcing governments and businesses to take serious action on matters related to recycling, composting, and climate change. 

Food2Soil and other community composters look at solid waste as a resource that has intrinsic social, economic, and environmental value. We have innovative ideas to recover this value and we execute our ideas in ways that build community wealth - making our neighborhoods healthier, local economies more resilient and our city’s infrastructure less dependant on capital intensive solutions. But local governments continue to prioritize their relationships with haulers over climate and community, pushing community composters out with full force.

A DROPOFF HUB IN EVERY ZIPCODE
​
The map below shows the sparse number of dropoff hubs in San Diego county even though most of us in the county do not have access to composting services. Extrapolate this across California and one quickly realizes that this problem is systemic. Even the cities that are now rolling out curbside composting services are only doing so for single-family homes and large businesses, leaving it unclear as to if and when residents of multi-family dwellings and small businesses will receive composting services. 

Dropoff hubs do not compete with franchise agreements. Instead they complement a citizen's right to self haul their waste and recyclables. 

Every local agency should include dropoff hubs as part of its SB1383 compliance plan.

---

IN A NUTSHELL

In California, the collection, transportation and processing of solid waste (including recyclables and food waste) has forever been dominated by a handful of large corporate haulers. Cities give these haulers exclusive rights over the waste generated within their boundaries. The haulers in turn pay a tonnage fee to the city. This is a very neat arrangement - the haulers get exclusive control on a market, and the local government gets its share of the haul.

Everyone is happy until some of us start questioning if this amounts to collusion between corporate interests and local governments, especially when the preferred hauler is unwilling or unable to offer certain services.

Small, community based composters in San Diego county and all over California are willing and able to offer composting services, right here and right now. But local government continues to beat us down and keep us out with full force.
​
For the record, services such as the Soil Farmer program do not involve the collection and transportation of food scraps and therefore do not violate franchise agreements. These programs simply allow self-haulers access to composting services. Self hauling is a right given to every citizen under California law. But local governments are afraid to allow Soil Farmers for fear of repercussions from the haulers.

INCLUDE COMMUNITY COMPOSTERS IN THE CAPACITY PLANNING DIALOGUE ON SB1383

​SB1383 requires each local agency to prepare a capacity plan which projects its capacity to process the organic waste expected to be generated by its constituents.

As part of this planning exercise cities are required to consult with small scale and community composters and include their capacity to process this material in the overall plan.

Read Soil Farmer Jill Selder's story of the hurdles she is facing in bringing composting to residents of Temecula.
​

---

However, most cities are skipping this step entirely either stating that they have zero capacity for community composting or fully relying on their franchised hauler to do their SB 1383 capacity planning for them.

---

HOW YOU CAN ADVOCATE FOR CHANGE

Let's make sure that our local governments are not choosing their relationships with haulers over our climate and our communities. You can advocate for change by taking the following steps:

STEP 1
Go to Food2Soil’s policy page. 

STEP 2
Click on the Send An Email - Advocate For Community Composting button. This will take you to Calrecycle's database of local government contacts responsible for waste and recycling policy.

​Enter your county and city in the dropdown box and copy the contacts listed under the following headings:

1. Annual Report Contacts
2. Jurisdiction Contacts
3. CalRecycle Office of Local Assistance and Market Development

STEP 3

Go back to Food2Soil's Policy Advocacy page and copy the sample language we've provided for your email. Feel free to modify this template email to include your own questions and concerns.
​
​Send the email to the contacts copied under Step 2. Make sure you are asking the following questions. 

1. ​What is the timeline for <your city’s name> to complete its SB 1383 capacity planning exercise and release its findings?
2. What steps is the city planning to take to estimate its capacity for local and community-scale composting?, and,
3. What changes would need to be made to the franchise agreement and solid waste ordinance so your city can have a neighborhood dropoff for foodscraps in <your zipcode>?

Please copy us at info@food2soil.net on your email. Thankyou for contributing your voice in making community composting a reality for CaliFornia.