The Road For Composting...Not As Rosy As This Compost Pile!

​The road to Temecula's first community compost pile was not as rosy as this picture might suggest.

Meet Jill Selders, Soil Farmer and trailblazer for community composting in Temecula. Jill divides her time between her apartments in Temecula and San Diego. Having formed the habit of composting with Food2Soil in San Diego, Jill started looking for similar options in Temecula.

Jill Selders wants real composting options for all Temecula residents. Way to go, Jill. Rot On!

For the record, City of Temecula provides curbside composting service to single family residences through their exclusive franchise agreement with CR&R (excerpt of agreement on right).

However multifamily residential dwellings and commercial clients with shared dumpsters do not have access to this service....yet.

AGREEMENT BETWEEN THE CITY OF TEMECULA AND CR&R INCORPORATED, DBA TEMECULA ENVIRONMENTAL, FOR THE COLLECTION, TRANSPORTATION, RECYCLING, COMPOSTING, AND DISPOSAL OF SOLID WASTE AND CONSTRUCTION DEBRIS AND FOR PROVIDING TEMPORARY BIN/ROLOFF SERVICES (the “Franchise Agreement”). 
Public Resources Code Section 400059 provides that the City has the right, and has determined that the public health, safety and well-being require, that an exclusive franchise be awarded to a qualified enterprise for the collection, transportation, recycling, composting, and disposal of solid waste.  Accordingly, Section 1 of the Franchise Agreement, “grants an exclusive franchise” to CR&R for the composting of solid waste (which includes Food Waste), pursuant to the Temecula Municipal Code and PRC Section 40059(a).  Furthermore, the Franchise Agreement, Amendment 5 to the agreement further provided that customers would have the option of diverting their organic waste through Grantee provided Food Waste and Green Waste Programs.

The exclusive franchise agreement makes it illegal for anyone else to offer fee-based waste-related services in Temecula, even if the service in question is not being offered by the city's preferred hauler (in this case composting to multifamily units) and is therefore not subject to the franchise agreement in the first place.​

Wishing to steer clear of any potential conflicts with haulers, their exclusive hauling rights, and well resourced legal departments, Jill asked for permission to offer a dropoff program. People would self-haul their food scraps to Soil Farmer Jill's compost hub and would pay only for the 'composting service'. 

​Jill thought this was an elegant solution because the ability to self-haul is always protected under all state and local laws. For e.g, SB 1383, California's bill for Reducing Short Lived Climate Pollutants provides room for community composting activity by specifying that ‘nothing in this section prohibits a generator from preventing or reducing waste generation, managing organic waste on site, or using a community composting site’.  Section 18984.9 - Organic Waste Generator Requirements

​But this idea was also tossed out of the window by city officials who consulted with CR&R's attorney on the validity of a dropoff program. Doesn't City of Temecula not have their own City Attorney to confirm validity of programs? But alas we digress.  ​

​Here's CR&R attorney's response on the legality of City of Temecula's franchise agreement.

​CR&R Attorney responded to SB 1383 regulations as follows:

"Certainly, the SB 1383 regulations require jurisdictions to provide organic waste collection services to all single-family and multifamily residences of all sizes and businesses that generate organic waste (which Temecula has done by contracting with CR&R). The language that provides the “nothing in this section prohibits a generator from preventing or reducing waste generation, managing organic waste on site, or using a community composting site” does not mandate that a generator do so.  Nor does it require that a City exempt a community composting site from the services provided pursuant to the exclusive franchise agreement. The language is permissive not mandatory."   

This is a common occurrence up and down the State of California. Haulers who are not able or willing to provide composting service to cities or certain constituents of a city are squatting on the entire food waste stream with the empty promise of offering the service in the very near future.

In the meantime individuals and organizations able and willing to start diverting these foodscraps, right here and right now, are being kept off limits through the tight choke of franchise agreements. It is a complete breakdown of local government's authority to advocate for climate and community.

We think that this is tantamount to collusion between cities and haulers to stunt our collective capacity to innovate and tackle local problems with locally resilient solutions. Food2Soil's journey over these last 5 years and the stories of community composters forced to operate under the radar, are all perfect examples of how we as Californians are systematically weakening our ability to participate in a circular economy, exercise our right on our resources and rebuild the health of our local soil and communities.

Meanwhile Jill and her friends from the Rose Haven Heritage Garden built their first community compost pile on July 2nd with donations of materials from residents and businesses. They'll try to keep going but without the ability to charge for their services they don't know how to make this program viable and sustainable.

Jill, like many other Temecula residents, is still confused as to why there are gaps in the services actually received by Temecualites and what the city thinks they receive through their contract with CR&R. She and her fellow residents living in multifamily housing wonder when they will actually receive composting service from CR&R since they are not allowed to build a solution themselves.

By agreeing to live with these outdated archaic franchise agreements we are choosing to put entrenched interests before our climate and communities. Are the Governor, Calrecycle and State Attorney General's office listening?

Temecula's first community compost pile built with contributions from Jill, Kathy, , Monique, Lea, Meagan and Starbucks.