Calling all fellow tree-huggers, Rainbow Warriors and snowflakes: you may be throwing out your garbage incorrectly. And that makes you not only a scofflaw, but a menace to the survival of our planet.
Chances are, you’ve got three large, city-issued waste bins parked outside your residence: one for recyclables, one for garbage (defined as non-recyclable, organic in the sense of carbon-based and once-living, and often food-related), and one for grass and garden trimmings. The latter container probably is embossed with a firm, multi-language warning, “Yard Waste Only,” or words to that effect.
Well, that’s wrong.
In fact, it’s been wrong since September 16, 2016, when Governor Jerry Brown signed Senate Bill 1383 into statewide law. The upshot: your food waste should no longer be going in the trash. Coincidentally or not, 2016 was also the year that more than 87,500 metric tons of methane leaked from a natural gas storage facility near Porter Ranch; those long-term effects are still being studied.
The blue-sky goal of SB 1383: to reduce methane levels in California by reducing the quantity of organic material sent to California landfills and incinerators. Although short-lived as greenhouse gasses go (compared with say, carbon dioxide), methane is considered a significant contributor to climate change. The target is a 75 percent reduction by right now, 2025.
How to make the needed change? “Food Waste Diversion.”
Huh?
In search of answers, we chatted with the extremely well-informed (and patient) Gabriel Silva, Environmental Programs Manager, City of Pasadena, Public Works, Resource Recovery & Recycling, who reports that our state currently has a combined diversion rate — as in diverting all waste from landfills and incineration — of 42 percent.
In addition to SB 1383, a Pasadena City Ordinance provides more detail on expected compliance.
Silva says this is part of a larger strategic plan called Zero 2040, a program of 19 separate initiatives intended to bring the rate of total diversion up to 83 percent by the year 2040.
The suggested method for reducing landfill methane may seem puzzling at first: the mandate is to place food scraps in the yard-waste container, along with lawn clippings, fallen fruit, pruned deadheads (no, not well-aged Jerry Garcia fans), twigs and leaves. In a single phrase: “co-mingled yard waste and bagged food waste.” Doing this diverts those “organics” — skin, fat-trimmings and bones, food-soiled paper (as long as it’s 100 percent fiber-based), fruit and vegetable peels, seeds, skins, rinds, coffee-grounds, eggshells — along with lawn trimmings into lively compost, rather than interring these into the landfill, where valuable bio-availability is lost.
Silva notes, “We’re lucky here in Pasadena, where people have three good options. First, there are free compost bins and workshops provided by the city, and all the details are on the City of Pasadena Web site. Secondly, there are community compost bins in our eight city parks. And thirdly, our Web site lays out the process for putting kitchen waste that used to go into the garbage, destined for a landfill, into your own residential yard waste bin.”
Landfills — what some of us call a dump — exist simply to contain waste by burying it in a plastic- or clay-lined pit, with little to no oxygen or moisture to support useful decomposition. This anaerobic environment produces a methane tsunami and differs from a compost heap, which is layered strategically and turned frequently to introduce oxygen into the mix.
Well-aerated compost creates a nutrient-rich soil amendment, and the presence of oxygen keeps methane levels low. Composting also stores carbon in the soil rather than releasing it as carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. In this way, composting can reduce the need for synthetic fertilizers. The occasionally stinky practice also improves soil-structure and moisture-retention, often meaning that less irrigation is needed for growing. Some composting methods enable the low emission of methane to be converted into usable energy.
Home-composting is one workable solution. But as Monrovia resident Andrea Hopkins says, “I got a bit tired of the maggots.” It’s true: a whiff of decay — that stink under the sink, in the form of a compost pail — rings the dinner-bell for many creatures.
Not only that: animal products, meaning meat waste, dairy foods, bones, bacon grease, lard and fat trimmings aren’t really suitable or safe for small-time DIY composting. The mouthwatering grease and funk of last night’s lamb chops will lure any number of four-legged diners to dig into the heap, not to mention armadas of roaches, flies, wasps and ants, all part of the blessed circle of life but hardly A-Listers at your next backyard BBQ.
In this sense, the combining of food waste with green waste accomplishes on a macro scale what few of us realistically can achieve at home.
For the past 25 years, eco-advocate Hopkins and her veteran husband Denny have shared their stately 1925 English Cottage-style home, formally recognized as a historic landmark, filled with art objects celebrating the beauty of nature, bears and ravens in particular. Mosquito-fish dart through the dappled shadows of a purling fountain, citrus trees, lavender and succulents lend shade, color and fragrance, and heavy, well-patinaed Arcosanti Soleri bells send a few pure, pensive notes out across the sun-swept backyard.
“I was a zealot composter for many years,” says Hopkins. “But I was never really doing it right, and so there was a stink. Then about two years ago, we got this flyer from Athens (residential waste collection service),telling us to put all food scraps in with the green waste. So now, that’s what I do.”
Both Athens Services and The City of Pasadena offer precise instructions for methane-mitigation on their respective Web sites to meet the shared diversion and reduction goals.
The Athens Services site states, “Not all cities have added food scrap collection to their services,” and Gabriel Silva cautions that “The disposal specifics may vary by jurisdiction.”
The City of Pasadena laid down the law for real on January 1, 2022 with the rollout of the Curbside Organics Recycling residential program, now in effect. The language is clear: “Residential refuse customers are required to place food waste into their yard waste container to be recycled.”
Perhaps some part of the reason that not every San Gabrielenx currently complies is semantic. This protocol is not what most of think of as recycling in the usual sense, as in shredding disposable water-bottles to make a pair of truly ugly sandals.
The process, in this moment of heightened Papacy, more closely resembles transubstantiation or some related form of alchemy. That grease-smeared pizza box, now permitted in the yard-waste bin, will never again hold an oozing Honey DeNiro Pie from Brooklyn Square. Instead, when it’s composted, it may find new life as fuel for a City of Pasadena trash truck.
Still, why aren’t more of us straw-spurning do-gooders on board with the change? Hopkins says, “I think Americans are squeamish and sheltered.” This observation is in line with the far harsher opinions of many scholars involved in environmental studies, including Alexander Clapp, the take-no-prisoners author of “Waste Wars:The Wild Life of Your Trash,” who in January 2025 wrote in The New York Times:
“We might at the very least be honest with ourselves about what we are doing We ship our waste to the other side of the planet not only because we produce far too much of it but also because we insist on an environment exorcised of our own material footprints. Everything you’ve ever thrown away in your life: There’s a good chance a lot of it is still out there, somewhere, be it headphones torched for their copper wiring in Ghana or a sliver of a Solo Cup bobbing across the Pacific Ocean.”
Hopkins adds, “I also think that around here, where we have bears and coyotes, people don’t like the idea of putting out meat scraps that might attract hungry predators.” The Athens Services site states:
“Bags for collecting food scraps: Liners/bags are optional. For at home kitchen collection, consider using a kitchen pail lined with newspaper or a paper bag. Plastic and bioplastic “compostable” bags are accepted in the organics container, but they must be CLEAR or translucent-green, and contents inside the bag must be visible. Although we ‘accept’ these bags, they will be ripped open to liberate the contents, and will not be recycled or composted (no matter the material type or certification). Although clear, Ziploc bags are not allowed for collecting food scraps as they are difficult to rip open at the compost facility. No other bioplastics are allowed in the Organics Container.”
Here’s another plot “twist”: although bags must be sealed tightly, twist-ties and rubber bands are prohibited in the organics bin. Silva suggests that getting one more pass out of those flimsy, single-use plastic bags some of us still pick up when marketing, usually in the produce section, are ideal for this purpose.
Still, the idea of using a plastic bag to discard kitchen waste understandably rubs many greenies, including Hopkins, the wrong way. Instead, she keeps a small pail in her kitchen sink for veggie scraps and other low-on-the-food chain organics which she empties daily directly into her yard-waste bin.
More carnivorous and aromatic scraps, like meat leftovers, go into the freezer, forming an odorless, rock-hard space-turd that she ejects into her green waste bin as the Athens trucks roll down her street once a week.
Silva comments, “We do get pushback on the plastic bag issue. We understand why. For years, people who care about the environment have been told that plastic is poison, which it is. But using a plastic bag reduces the ‘ick’ factor, you know? And if the plastic bag gets ripped open during the processing, it’s okay, that just means that the contents get composted with the yard trimmings and landscaping waste, which is the whole idea.”
Anyone who surfs Nextdoor is subject to daily screeds about still-steamin’ doggie-doo bags plunked into someone else’s garbage can (the horror…the horror…). On this topic, most waste-combining protocols are hands-off. Silva agrees: “Put the poo into the actual garbage or trash bin, preferably your own.” FYI, on the subject of flushing, wait for it: it’s complicated.
Silva says, “Pet poo itself can be safely flushed, according to the EPA. This gets tricky with cats, though. Cat-litter wreaks havoc on plumbing, just like those pre-moistened wipes which claim to be flushable. Don’t flush those, in spite of what the package may say. The only place for those and the kitty litter is the landfill.”
The path of Food Waste Diversion organics from your curb to their ultimate destination is a pilgrim’s progress.
From Pasadena, stops along the way to future fuel or soil amendment uses include a visit to a MRF (Material Recovery Facility) in Puente Hills, and a run through a DODA Digester Mixer, what Silva calls a “giant garbage disposal” which neatly strips off the controversial plastic bag if present, and converts the future compost into fermented bio-slurry. The shed plastic goes to landfill, while the resultant sludge is in turn processed into bio-solids and bio-gas, the latter mostly methane which then serves to power a wastewater treatment facility in Carson. Silva explains that the methane produced may also be shared with a CNG, or Compressed Natural Gas network.
Understanding what is and is not environmentally kosher requires close scrutiny. Some of the delineations may cause head-scratching. Tea bags, for example, should never be composted because they usually are fabricated with polypropylene, a microplastic that keeps the bag from dissolving in hot water. Even groovier-than-Lipton’s manufacturers typically make their sachets with PLA (polylactic acid), a plant-derived polymer that takes forever to biodegrade.
Who knew? From now on, my Darjeeling and Lapsang will be brewed loose-leaf.
Andrea Hopkins, only half-joking, describes some of the correspondence from Athens Services about the expected disposal practices as “threatening,” with penalties suggested for non-compliance. Along these lines, the City of Pasadena has (apparently) instituted a lid-flipping program where, at random, the bins of residents will be inspected for violations.
Proper sorting will earn you a sticker, validated by an anthropomorphic carrot who confirms “Good Job!” Contaminations — transgressions involving glass, metal, or hosanna-worthy yet forbidden palm fronds in your yard waste container, for example — will be flagged with an accusatory apple core-emblazoned sticker which proclaims “OOPS! We found a problem.”
Gabriel Silva explains that The City of Pasadena shares information about the desired practice of waste-combining through bill inserts, social media posts, and bus-stop billboard ads. “These programs are in their infancy,” he says. “We do realize that there is a learning curve in terms of education, and people resist changing their habits. What we are asking does require a bit more care than trash disposal in the past. We are engaging on a very grassroots level with our communities, to share why this shift in thinking is so important to our region, and our world.”
Like the Muppet frog said, it’s not easy being green.
I read Victoria’s articles on a pretty regular basis. I live in Rochester MN. We do not
have the three residential trash bins, as in Pasadena, just trash and a recycle. Also, we do not have “free” public compost bins (dumps) or workshops. However, I can now see that I can make wiser choices concerning which bin I place trash. There are few guidelines here. Thanks Victoria!