Residents of Los Angeles will now have to adapt to placing their food scraps in a green, curbside bin.
The changes come as municipalities conform with California's SB 1383, which requires all municipalities in the state reduce organics to landfills 75 percent by 2025. The Los Angeles Sanitation and Environment (LASAN) announced that all 750,000 of their residential customers now have access to compost their food scraps and yard waste.
"We appreciate the leadership of the City for moving expeditiously to make this new program come to life,” said Barbara Romero, LASAN executive director and general manager, in a statement. “LASAN is committed to diverting food waste from the landfill in order to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and create better air quality throughout Los Angeles. We have been preparing for the launch of OrganicsLA for years and are anxious for this next phase to begin."
The department's 2019-2021 pilot program for curbside collection of compostable material was expanded from 18,000 to 40,000 households in 2022. Now that the Board of Public Works and city council members have secured contracts with organics processors, the program comes at no cost to residents.
LASAN is providing one, two-gallon kitchen pail per household, which will be picked up at distribution sites. However, residents are able to use any container they choose to dump food scraps into their curbside collection bins.
Items that can go in the green bin include:
- Fruits, vegetables
- Dairy, eggshells
- Stale bread, cereal, grains, rice, pasta, beans
- Old lunch meat, steak and chicken bones, fish bones, shells
- Coffee grounds and used paper coffee filters
- Food soiled paper products (e.g., used paper napkins , soiled pizza boxes)
- Yard trimmings, flowers, and clean untreated wood
The program, called Organics LA, is expected to divert more than 2 million pounds of food scraps from landfill if the majority of residents participate, according to news reports.