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SB 1383 at home: how to compost food waste in your kitchen

California's organic waste law changed what belongs in the trash. Here's what it asks of households, what goes in the green bin, and a kitchen setup that makes it automatic.

What SB 1383 is

SB 1383 is California's short-lived climate pollutants law, signed in 2016. It targets methane — a powerful greenhouse gas — and one of the biggest sources it goes after is food and other organic waste rotting in landfills. The law set statewide goals to cut the organic waste sent to landfills by 75% (from 2014 levels) and to rescue at least 20% of edible food that would otherwise be thrown away.

Its regulations took effect on January 1, 2022, when cities and counties had to start providing organic waste collection to every home and business. CalRecycle oversees the program; your city or county and its waste hauler run it locally. The official overview is on CalRecycle's SB 1383 page.

What it means for your household

• Separate organics from trash. Food scraps and food-soiled paper go in the organics cart, not the trash cart.
• Use the right cart. Most jurisdictions use a green cart for organics, blue for recycling and gray or black for trash. Your hauler's guide is the final word.
• Expect checks. Haulers can inspect carts and issue contamination notices when organics are in the trash or trash is in the green cart. Local rules can attach fees to repeated violations.
• Apartments count too. Multifamily buildings must provide organics collection, so residents need a way to sort in their own kitchens.

What goes in the green bin

This is where most people are surprised: the list is longer than peels and coffee grounds.

Accepted items vary by hauler — some cities take compostable bags and certified compostable packaging, many don't. When in doubt, check your city's green-bin guide, and leave it out rather than contaminate the cart.

Why food waste matters

Food waste in a landfill is buried without oxygen, so it breaks down into methane, a greenhouse gas roughly 80 times more potent than CO₂ over 20 years. Organic waste is the largest category of material sent to U.S. landfills — about 24% of what we throw away. Sent to composting instead, the same scraps become soil amendment.

A kitchen setup that makes it automatic

The households that stick with SB 1383 sorting aren't the most motivated — they're the ones where the right choice is also the easiest. Three things make the difference:

1. Put compost next to the trash. If compost lives on the counter and trash lives in the cabinet, every scrape is a decision. Side by side, it's automatic.
2. Make it big enough for paper. A 1–3 gallon countertop pail can't take a dirty paper plate, so plates and napkins end up in the trash — which SB 1383 doesn't allow.
3. Make it easy to empty and clean. No liners to buy, nothing to scrape, and dishwasher-safe if possible.

That's exactly what CompostFit was designed for. It's a compost insert that drops into a Rev-A-Shelf RV-35 or RV-50 pull-out trash can and takes about a third of it. Your trash bag tucks under its rim; food scraps and paper go in the compost side. To empty it, lift it straight out and dump it into the green cart; to clean it, separate the two pieces and run them through the dishwasher. Check if your trash can fits.

Outside California

California isn't alone. Several states have organic waste laws or landfill restrictions on food scraps — including Washington, Oregon, New York and Vermont — and many cities offer curbside food-scrap collection. Even without a mandate, the same kitchen setup works with a backyard compost pile or a drop-off program.

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