California鈥檚 2022 Organics Recycling Law requires certain businesses to donate surplus edible food, and businesses and households to separate organic waste like food scraps and yard trimmings from the landfill to reduce methane emissions. Decomposing organic waste in landfills accounts for 20% of California鈥檚 methane emissions, according to the state鈥檚 waste recycle department, CalRecycle.
As Sacramento works to comply with the law, public education is a major focus, Andrew Vue said, a code enforcement officer. “For the most part, we see a lot of [trash] cans are pretty good,鈥� Vue said. 鈥淪o there鈥檚 two stickers. There鈥檚 one that鈥檚, let鈥檚 sort it out, to basically highlight different items in a bin that needs to go into the bin correctly and then you can sort it that way. And then we have great job tags, which are containers that have like zero to no cross-contamination.鈥�
The City of Sacramento said it hasn鈥檛 issued any fines and doesn鈥檛 plan to. Since the law took effect, jurisdictions have faced implementation challenges, and one of the nation鈥檚 largest organics recycling facilities near Los Angeles filed for bankruptcy in 2023 after saying it wasn鈥檛 receiving enough material from municipalities, before later reopening under new ownership.