Welcome to the Organic Waste Recycling and Edible Food Recovery Capacity Planning Website for Los Angeles County Jurisdictions. Senate Bill 1383 Regulations require counties to submit to CalRecycle a set of information related to organic waste capacity and edible food recovery capacity planning. This website is intended to provide you, as the jurisdiction, the resources for meeting these requirements.

Approved SB 1383 Regulations

Senate Bill 1383 Regulations In September 2016, Governor Edmund Brown Jr. set methane emissions reduction targets for California (Senate Bill (SB) 1383 Lara, Chapter 395, Statutes of 2016) in a statewide effort to reduce emissions of short-lived climate pollutants. The targets must: Reduce organic waste disposal 50% by 2020 and 75% by 2025. Rescue for people to eat at least 20% of currently disposed surplus edible food by 2025. These are statewide goals that California must collectively achieve, and not individual requirements. In other words, individual jurisdictions and individual food donors are not required to meet the organic waste disposal goals and 20 percent edible food recovery rate separately.

As communities grow and laws for organic waste diversion take effect (such as SB 1383), the demand for organic waste processing facilities is projected to increase. Some of the organic waste is already being processed and/or recycled by existing organic waste processing facilities located both in and out of Los Angeles County. Future demands will require the expansion of these existing facilities as well as the development of new facilities.

Senate Bill 619: Latest Information on SB 619 – “Notification of Intent to Comply with SB 1383 Regulations”

In order to comply with SB 1383 regulations, which require a County to collect planning information from jurisdictions and submit to CalRecycle by August 1, 2024, we are requesting jurisdictions to please submit jurisdictional information to the County no later than June 7,2024.

The following is a schedule of meetings for capacity planning purposes. Take a look at our Past Virtual Meetings page for more information

Public Works will be conducting surveys of existing & proposed organic waste processing/recycling facilities that are known to the County throughout the Southern California region, beginning early 2024 and will be sharing the results in the Regional Organic Waste Capacity Assessment 2024 Report which is scheduled to be released in August 2024. (See next section for Regional Organic Waste Capacity Assessment 2022 Report). We are primarily focused on capturing the amount of “net available capacity”, considering what each facility currently processes vs. how much they can handle as a maximum (in tons per day). This information is ideally collected from each facility per material type as well as processing type. If your jurisdiction would be interested in gathering your own information from facilities, here is a sample form that can be a starting point for your jurisdiction.


SB 1383 Regulations also require counties, in coordination with jurisdictions, to “consult with community composting operators to estimate the amount of organic waste the county, the jurisdictions and regional agencies located within the county, anticipate will be handled at community composting activities.” For this purpose, here is a sample form that can be a starting point for your jurisdiction.

Sample Survey - Community Composting

To assist the jurisdictions within the County with identifying organic waste capacity that may be available to handle the waste generated by residents and businesses within their jurisdiction, Public Works, with the assistance of a consultant, conducted a regional organic waste capacity assessment. The regionwide survey was administered to over 200 existing, proposed/planned new, and planned expanded transfer/processing, composting, chipping and grinding, anaerobic digestion, and co-digestion facilities throughout the Southern California region. The main focus of this Regional Organic Waste Capacity Assessment Report is to share the results of this survey. Although organic waste is defined by law to mean: food waste, green waste (leaves and grass), landscape and pruning waste, nonhazardous wood waste, and food-soiled paper waste that is mixed with food waste, for the purposes of this report, and to conform to the requirements of SB 1383, the following types of organic waste were included in the analysis: food, green waste, landscape and pruning waste, wood, paper products, printing and writing paper, digestate, and biosolids. Please click on the image below to see a copy of the Regional Organic Waste Capacity Assessment 2022 Report.

The County's Food Donation and Recovery Outreach Program (Food DROP) surveyed over 1,000 food recovery organizations (FROs) and services (FRSs) throughout Los Angeles County. Lists of FROs/FRSs and survey responses were shared with cities in April 2022. In preparing for the 2024 edible food recovery capacity planning process, the Food DROP team asks that each city provide an updated FRO/FRS list within their jurisdiction. Cities are also responsible for identifying their Tier One and Tier Two Commercial Edible Food Generators (EFGs), assessing the edible food donation capacity of each mandated donor, and submitting that information to the County. Check out our Food DROP website for more information about food recovery agencies located throughout the county and additional resources related to edible food recovery.

Visit our Frequently Asked Questions Page for more information on Organic Waste Recycling and Edible Food Recovery Capacity Planning.

Also, below are some additional resources from CalRecycle's various websites related to SB 1383.


● Short-Lived Climate Pollutant Reduction Strategy Website: CalRecycle's website is a great reference that contains information about Senate Bill 1383 Regulations, the rulemaking process, as well as many great resources related to collection and recycling, capacity planning, food recovery, etc.
● SB 1383 Education and Outreach Resources: This link has many great resources and tools to assist jurisdictions and educate local decision makers.
● SB 1383 Capacity Planning: This CalRecycle page has excellent resources related to capacity planning for organic waste recycling and edible food recovery, including an Organic Waste Recycling Capacity Planning Calculator Tool and an Edible Food Recovery Capacity Planning Calculator Tool.
● SB 1383 Food Recovery: To reduce food waste and help address food insecurity, SB 1383 requires that by 2025 California will recover 20 percent of edible food that would otherwise be sent to landfills, to feed people in need.
● SB 619 Notification of Intent to Comply with SB 1383 Regulations: Check out this link for the latest information on submitting a Notification of Intent to Comply with SB 1383 Regulations to CalRecycle by March 1, 2022.