New waste and food recycling collection program for California residents begins January

ARE. YOU. SERIOUS?

No wonder so many people are moving to Texas. If I thought we could afford it, and put up with bugs that are so large you can put saddles on them and ride them like horses, I would consider doing so myself.

How much is this costing our various levels of government, in terms of extra "bins," collection personnel, trucks, collection time and processing, and bureaucrats to administer the whole thing? And how much will it all really matter in the long term?

I'm glad I'm old, meaning I won't have to put up with this increasing level of nonsense for much longer.

My waste bin is crushed and unusable and I have told Waste Management but they tell me they can not replace it until 12/31/2021. Now that I read this story from the City, I understand why they are blowing me off. They are not going to do anything until the new bins arrive. Way to go! But oddly enough, they still "remember" to send me the monthly bill . . .

Do what I do and load all your trash into the recycle bin. You can research this but the recycle bin is a joke. All bins eventually go to the dump.

Great. For those of us who have a zero or “negative” lot line (thanks Mission Viejo) and have to keep trash in the garage or elsewhere, this is great news.

Questions not addressed in the City/Waste Management literature:
1) What happens to the hundreds of thousands (literally) of perfectly fine cans that are picked up due to not being compliant with the new color scheme?
2) Where will home owners and renters place the additional required can (for those who do not need a bin previously for landscape waste)? Keep in mind real estate in Mission Viejo is extremely tight. Some condo residents have a small single garage where vehicles and cans are to be stored. Some home owners are in zero lot line houses with limited real estate. HOA's and condo associations typically do not allow storage of waste containers within view of the street, and will fine owners if they do so.

Just another waste of tax payers money.. Just sad that our state and officials actually think this is a good idea.. watch next weeks trach pickup for 90% of these FOOD WASTE bins in the trash.. You think people want this ugly thing sitting on their counter at home?.. Another fail and waste by out state..

just need more clarification re: the food waste, and got new can, but reading some of the info that came with this announcement, we still need our kitchen food scrap pail, and how to use it. Also, we have to clean out our cans from now on?

What’s the small lunch box sized container for? We're supposed to put vegetable s in it and then drop it in the recyclable bin? What genius approved this ??

THIS IS A GREAT PROGRAM AND I SUPPORT IT. Thank goodness we live in a state that gives a crap about the future.

What happens if you live in a complex that has large “Trash Bins” not individual trash cans?
Also is this just for Mission Viejo? That’s the only city mentioned so far and I’ve not heard about this except on Nextdoor.

Has anyone thought about the little critters (ants, rodents, maggots) that this will attract. We received a notice to dump all of the scraps in the green bin, minus any bags, leaving this open to attract many little critters! And...whose going to want the stench that this is going to have where ever you have the rotting waste? I get saving the environment, but seriously, this could have been researched much better with the pros and cons.

I agree as a progressive I like many California laws (especially those that protect abortion rights) but this trash and food scraps law is definitely a waste of time. What they should do is only have a trash bucket and maybe an aluminum recycling bucket (only source that makes money) and that’s it. Everything else goes to landfill anyway despite what they say. Your plastic bottles we put in recycle bin really go to landfill and there’s plenty of landfill space. I will not move to horrible Texas but maybe one day I’ll move to progressive part of Washington state with no income tax and costs less. CA needs to learn from suburban Washington and keep taxes low with reasonable laws. Still it’s only one law, CA still has better weather than PA? Lol.

This was tried in Los Angles area back in the early 60S and the stink, bugs, maggots, and rodents it attracted caused so many nasty problems it was discontinued.
Who wants there garage to smell up there living space or garage. Summer time will be overwhelming.
This is one stupid idea.
JZ

If leaves and grass are biodegrable why can't food go into these same containers? My education said that food decomposes just like grass...what am i missing?

I am trying to go with the flow for ecological reasons but have several concerns.

1. Preparing for January 1, I fitted a plastic bag inside the food waste "lunch box" so I could dump the contents into the organics bin for trash day and not have to wash it out. Good. And then I looked for a place to keep it. Frig? No, too full (although this would be the best place temperature-wise). Under the sink? No, all full and well organized. Outside? No, rats and bugs. Any other place in the house? No, I don't want to smell rotting meat all week - it has little vents in the top. So right now it sits empty on the floor in the dining room awaiting a decision.....or maybe a plant. Also, assuming I dump the messy organic waste safely in the big organics can, and truck #3 picks it up, I'll have to continually wash it out lest the slime growing up the inside attracts critters. I do occasionally wash out my trash cans but not every week! Nor do I have to put them out every week! It doesn't seem anyone gave any thought to the reality of keeping these new tools around or the hygiene thereof.

2. The asphalted streets in our senior community are falling apart before they're budgeted for repair under the wheels of two big garbage trucks currently coming each time we have trash/recycle day. Will we now have three? The way our streets branch off from the main, each truck has to go in and out four times to pick up trash on both sides and ends of a street. Twice in headfirst and twice in backwards. According to our asphalt advisor this is equal to 900 passenger cars when the truck is empty. If the state wants us to do this, the state or the city or county should pay for re-doing our streets in senior communities as well as outside of them. We pay taxes, too, and this new Residential Recycling and Refuse Service is one of the main reasons our HOA dues increased dramatically this year and will again on January 1st in a couple of weeks. We're out of pocket for the streets as we are forced to adopt the program that is contributing to their decline. Doesn't seem fair!

3.We have limited outdoor space to put this many cans and very little green waste because everything past our patios is common property the HOA maintains. During Covid I actually designed part of my side "yard" with brick and pavers to accommodate two trash bins, an air-conditioning unit, a bird bath, a birdhouse and a hummingbird feeder and put lovely white gates up to keep it separate from the patio. I call it my bird Sanctuary. I actually had two birds nest in the bushes this first year. I have no place for another huge trash can in the house or garage and I'm not sacrificing the birdbath!

4. The cost of doing this massive over-haul of our waste management program has already impacted us. It just doesn't seem well thought out. Couldn't we, for instance, have just put different colored tops on the existing trash cans if we wanted to color-co-ordinate? Mine seemed almost new. Have they just become trash themselves? It seems such a waste. In terms of dollars and cents, were we mandated by SB1383 to be quite so spendy or did each city's or county's Waste Management Service choose how to implement the law? Is the state helping the cities? In other words, who put this program together and who is paying for it except we residents? Also, I'm a little confused about which plastic containers are recyclable. I haven't seen in all the literature, nor heard anyone mention, the little numbers in the triangles on the bottoms of nearly all such containers. On an Island we recycled 1s and 2s and nothing else. If that is still he case, mightn't that knowledge keep plastics from getting in the wrong bin and necessitating administrative costs to write a cite? And lastly, I've heard also the concern as written above that the re-cycling program is a myth and all of it is dumped in a landfill. Having lived on a 33-mile-long by 25-mile-wide island, I take recycling seriously - I will literally recycle a postage stamp. It's very dis-heartening to care so much about the environment and find out you're being tricked. Who knows the real story? What is the real truth? Why are there literally five "garbage patches" caught in our world's ocean currents, the largest twice the size of Texas and containing an estimated 80,000 tons of plastic. With an estimated 1.15 to 2.41 million tons of plastic entering the ocean each year from rivers, it sounds plausible that some of our recyclables are not being utilized as intended. So who is dumping what should be recycled into our rivers? We must be vigilant and ask these hard questions.

What if I’m composing my self? I’m I obligated to give my compost to the city?

I live in a neighborhood with curbs and asphalt falling apart.
Waste Management is smashing up the place. I fight my neighbors to find a place to put my trash cans. Too many renters, cars all over the place. I got a cat killing everything in sight. Now waste management wants me to recycle and comply with SB 1383. Well good luck, I will try.

Blue, really and the ugliest blue ever. Jeez thanks guys
now my house looks like Sponge Bob square pants lives here.
Thanks guy's. NOT GOOD!!!!