Compliance

SB 1383: What Changed, and Who It Actually Applies To

Organics are about half of what California sends to landfill. Since 2024, local jurisdictions have been required to penalise non-compliance.

What SB 1383 is

Senate Bill 1383 was signed in September 2016 and its regulations have been in effect since 1 January 2022. It is described, not unreasonably, as the most significant landfill waste reduction mandate California has adopted in thirty years.

The reasoning is about methane rather than tidiness. Organic material decomposing in a landfill produces methane, a far more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide, and organics make up roughly half the content of California's landfills. Divert the organics and you cut the methane.

Two statewide targets sit at the centre of it:

• Reduce organic waste disposal by 75% from the 2014 level by 2025
• Recover at least 20% of currently-disposed edible food for people to eat by 2025

The dates that matter

The 2024 line is the one that changed the character of this from an aspiration to a rule. Enforcement is not optional for jurisdictions any more.

Organic waste is broader than you think

Most people hear "organics" and think food scraps and lawn clippings. The definition is wider:

• Food waste
• Yard trimmings and green waste
• Landscape and pruning waste
• Paper and cardboard
• Non-hazardous wood waste
• Food-soiled paper

That last-but-one item is the surprise, and it is why this statute reaches into construction. Lumber is organic waste. Pruning wood from an orchard is organic waste. A pallet is organic waste.

In a county built on citrus, tree fruit, vineyards and dairy, that is not a small category. Orchard removals and vine pulls generate organic waste by the acre.

Households: the green cart

For a household inside the City of Visalia, the practical effect is the cart system. The City of Visalia runs its own Solid Waste Division — it collects its own residential and commercial waste rather than contracting a franchise hauler, and it states that maximising diversion from landfill is its primary focus.

The rule of thumb that holds almost everywhere: yard trimmings and untreated wood go in the green container. What varies between jurisdictions is food waste, so check your own local guidance rather than assuming from a neighboring city.

What does not go in a green container anywhere: treated, painted or laminated wood, pressure-treated timber, anything with fasteners and hardware still attached in quantity, and anything contaminated with chemicals. Contaminating a green load is worse than putting it in the trash, because it can spoil an entire batch.

Businesses and the five-unit rule

Two earlier laws still matter alongside SB 1383, and one has a threshold worth knowing precisely.

AB 1826, Mandatory Organics Recycling, has required since 1 April 2016 that businesses implement an organic waste recycling program — and it expressly includes multifamily residential dwellings of five or more units.

AB 341, Mandatory Commercial Recycling, separately requires qualifying businesses and multifamily complexes to separate recyclable materials from landfill-bound waste.

Between them, a landlord with a six-unit building has both a recycling obligation and an organics obligation, and neither is discharged by putting a single trash bin in the car park.

The enforcement step people missed

Worth stating plainly because it is the difference between a target and a rule.

From 1 January 2024, CalRecycle requires local jurisdictions to impose penalties for non-compliance on the regulated entities under their authority. Jurisdictions were also required from 2022 to secure organics processing capacity and to procure recovered organic products.

So the enforcement mechanism is local. Your city or county is the one obliged to act, which means the practical answer to "who checks?" is: the same people who send your waste bill.

Where a container fits in

A roll-off is not a substitute for your cart service or your business organics program, and we would not suggest otherwise. What it is for is volume that the cart system was never sized for:

• Orchard, vine and grove removals — bulky, light, and enormous in volume
• Whole-property landscape clearing
• Tree removals and major pruning, which fill a green cart in about four minutes
• Construction lumber from framing and demolition
• Storm and wind damage across a property

Where we can help with the compliance side is by keeping the streams separate and giving you tickets that say what the load was. If your job has a diversion requirement attached to a building permit, that is covered in detail here.

One practical note on green waste specifically: keep it clean. A container of pure orchard wood has a route that a container of orchard wood plus fencing plus a mattress does not.

What this does not change

Some things are the same as they always were, and it is worth saying so:

• Hazardous waste is still hazardous waste. Paint, solvents, fuel and chemicals go to household hazardous waste — in Visalia, the Corporation Yard on Cain Street, Saturday mornings.
• Treated wood is not organic waste. It is the exception that catches people, and there is a lot of it around fences, decks and patio structures.
• Mixed loads are still mixed loads. Contaminating a clean stream does not just cost the diversion credit, it can cost the whole load's route.
• You still need somewhere for the residual. Not everything diverts, and the Tulare County Landfill on Avenue 328 is where most of what genuinely cannot be recovered ends up.