Rancho Bernardo residents and businesses in coming months will have to separate their waste among three bins — black, blue and green — as the City of San Diego makes efforts to reduce greenhouse gases.
Polina Osipova, a recycling specialist with the city’s Environmental Services Department, explained the changes during the May 5 Rancho Bernardo Community Council meeting.
She said the start date for organic waste recycling is not yet known because the city is waiting for its order of green bins, kitchen pails and collection trucks. When they arrive, all trash customers in single-family homes, multi-family homes and businesses citywide will be expected to put their food waste and landscape clippings into the green bins for weekly organic waste collection.
Organic waste consists of food waste (fruits, vegetables, eggs, dairy such as cheese, bread, baked goods and prepared food), food-soiled paper (coffee filters, kitchen paper napkins, paper bags and parchment paper) and yard waste (grass, leaves, flowers, plant trimmings, branches and nonhazardous wood).
It does not include food-soiled paper such as cardboard pizza boxes. Osipova said people should tear off the clean part of the box and put it in the blue bin for recycling, while the greasy area goes into the black bin.
“People will not be motivated to tear off the top and put it in a different can,” said RB Community Council member Tom Lettington. “You need a better plan.”
Separated yard waste for greenery recycling has been collected throughout Rancho Bernardo for many years. Most residents use regular trash cans they purchased for manual greenery collection. Once the new program begins these cans cannot be used since collection will be automated like it is for black and blue bins.
Some RB residents, like those in The Trails, already have green bins for automated collection. However, no one is to start putting food waste and food-soiled paper in with their greenery recycling until notified that the organic waste collection system has begun.
RB Community Council President Robin Kaufman asked if residents can be issued more than one green bin for free since many often have multiple cans filled with yard waste now.
“You can get as many blue bins as you want, I would presume the same should be for green,” Kaufman said, adding, “If you limit … people aren’t going to buy them and will put their waste in the black can.”
Osipova said the change is due to California State Senate Bill 1383. It requires the reduction of organic waste disposed in landfills.
When organic waste decomposes it releases methane, a gas that traps the sun’s heat, warms the atmosphere and contributes to climate change, according to the city’s website. Information on the new requirements for residential and business trash collection customers is at tinyurl.com/SD-green-bins.
“More than 900,000 tons of trash is disposed of yearly in the Miramar Landfill,” Osipova said. “The recycling ordinance requires everyone to recycle.”
She said the state set the emission goals for greenhouse gases in 2016. To meet the mandate, the City of San Diego needs to divert half of what is going into the landfill. Recycling organic waste has the potential to make the “fastest impact” on the environment.
“The new recycling rules are a big change from how we do things,” Osipova said. “The implementation will be in phases.”
She said the city will need to expand its greenery facility at the Miramar Landfill so it can process the additional waste. The municipal code also needs to be updated, additional workers need to be hired, franchise agreements with private waste haulers need to be amended and, once the bins become available, they need to be distributed.
“The goal is zero waste by 2040,” she said.
Other benefits of reducing organic waste sent to the landfill are support of the city’s Climate Action Plan, creation of healthy compost for soil and the landfill’s life is extended.
It is not only residential trash customers that need to change their habits. Businesses will have to make available extra bins so their food waste can be separated. In addition, food-generating businesses are required to donate their surplus edible food to food recovery organizations. These include Feeding San Diego, San Diego Rescue Mission, Kitchens for Good, Father Joe’s Villages, Ronald McDonald House Charities San Diego and The Jacobs & Cushman San Diego Food Bank.
