Climate change: short-lived climate pollutants: organic waste reduction

The law gives local jurisdictions more ways to comply with California’s organic-waste recycling rules while supporting the use of compost and qualifying agricultural soil amendments instead of landfill disposal.

What the law does ​

• Allows local jurisdictions to count qualifying agricultural amendments made from organic waste, including some biosolids, for up to 10% of their recovered-organic-waste procurement target.
• Requires those agricultural amendments to qualify as landfill diversion, receive California Department of Food and Agriculture approval or registration as fertilizer, avoid specified solid-waste disposal or transformation activities, and be counted by dry weight.
• Lets jurisdictions count compost from qualifying small composting operations with up to 200 cubic yards of onsite feedstock and compost, or up to 500 cubic yards for operations owned by public agencies, subject to possible regulatory increases.

Who it affects ​

• Cities, counties, and other local jurisdictions with recovered-organic-waste procurement targets.
• Composting operators, agricultural amendment producers, and end users of qualifying organic-waste products.
• Farmers and other users of qualifying organic-waste-derived fertilizing materials.