California is forging ahead with food waste recycling. But is it too much, too fast?

CHULA VISTA, California — Two years after California launched an effort to keep organic waste out of landfills, the state is so far behind in starting food recycling programs that it is widely expected that next year’s ambitious waste reduction goals will not be met.

Over time, food scraps and other organic materials, such as yard waste, emit methane, a gas that is more potent and harmful in the short term than carbon emissions from fossil fuels. California’s goal is to keep that waste from accumulating in landfills and instead turn it into compost or biogas.

Everything from banana peels and used coffee grounds to yard waste and contaminated paper products like pizza boxes count as organic waste. Households and businesses now have to sort that material into a different bin.

But it was difficult to change people’s behavior in such a short time and due to the pandemic, cities faced delays in drawing up contracts for transporting organic waste. In Southern California, the nation’s largest plant to convert food waste into biogas has filed for bankruptcy because it isn’t getting enough organic material.

“We are way behind on implementation,” said Coby Skye, the recently retired deputy director for environmental services at Los Angeles County Public Works. “In America, for better or for worse, we want convenience, and it’s very difficult to spend a lot of time and effort educating people about divorce.”

Meanwhile, some communities that have ramped up collections now have more compost than they know what to do with, a sign of more challenges to come as the nation’s most populous state continues its recycling plans.

Only a handful of states mandate organics recycling, and none is implementing a program as large as California’s, which aims to reduce the amount of organic waste it sends to landfills by 75% by 2025 compared to the 2014 level.

Achieving that goal within a year would be a tall order, experts say.

About three-quarters of communities currently collect organic waste from homes, said Rachel Machi Wagoner, director of CalRecycle. While some places are behind, her goal is not to punish them but to help them along the way, adding that every little bit helps the state toward its goal of reducing emissions.

“My goal is to find out where the challenges lie and get us to success as quickly as possible,” she said.

“I don’t know when we will reach our 75% goal, but we will get there,” she added.

CalRecycle has not yet collected data on the amount of organic waste diverted from landfills in 2023. Jurisdictions reported that 11.2 million tons (10.1 million tons) of organic waste was diverted at the end of 2022, up from 9.9 million tons (8.9 million tons) the previous year, Wagoner said.

Some challenges include getting residents on board by sorting their waste into a third bin and knowing what goes where. Others wonder what to do with the nutrient-rich compost once it is made from collected grass clippings, tree limbs and food scraps.

At Otay Landfill, near the Mexican border, workers pick piles of branches and leaves to remove plastic bits before placing the material under tarps. The site processes 200 tons (181 metric tons) of organic waste daily and hopes to double that amount as more cities ramp up collection, said Gabe Gonzales, the landfill’s operations manager.

Once the compost is made, California law requires cities to use a lot of it. But many say they don’t have enough space to put everything down.

Chula Vista, a San Diego County city of 275,000, would use 14,000 tons (12,700 metric tons) of compost annually, but a few thousand at best, said Manuel Medrano, the city’s environmental services manager. Some of it is distributed in free compost giveaways for residents, while mounds of the material are stored in a fenced area of ​​a local park.

“Transporting it is very expensive, distributing it is very expensive,” Medrano said. “We are still far from meeting that requirement.”

Communities with more open space could fare better. Cody Cain, head of marketing and sales at compost maker Agromin, said his company has developed a plan to connect cities struggling to meet these requirements with farmers who need the material for their soil.

“We’re basically matchmakers. Call us the ‘Tinder’ of compost, and we’ll bring the farmer together with the city,” Cain said.

Food waste can also be converted into biogas to fuel vehicles or industrial activities. But a massive factory built three years ago in the Southern California city of Rialto is now facing bankruptcy after Los Angeles was slow to ramp up collections, leaving the factory with insufficient waste, says Yaniv Scherson, Chief Operating Officer of Anaergia Inc.

“It is because the cities have not enforced in time and the market is struggling,” he said. “If it doesn’t get raw materials this year, there’s a chance it could be shut down completely.”

LA Sanitary facilities & Environment, which handles waste and recycling for the city of nearly 4 million residents, had no immediate comment.

Heidi Sanborn, founder and director of the Environmental National Stewardship Action Council, said she supports the state law but wants to do more to keep plastic out of the compost and develop alternative energy solutions. Some of California’s challenges stem from the state trying to build a system on a scale the country hasn’t seen before, she said.

“We’re trying to solve incredibly difficult problems. We won’t find the perfect solution right away,” she said.

But, Sanborn added, “we are on our way.”