California’s Senate Bill (SB) 1383 on composting represents a crucial responsibility to our environment that our community must uphold. Put in place by former Governor Edmund Brown Jr. in September 2016, SB 1383 aims to reduce 75% of organic waste disposal and recover 20% of currently disposed food by 2025 through two mandates for 2022 and 2024, according to CalRecycle. As of March 25, 2024, MUSD is mostly in compliance with the composting mandate from 2022, as composting bins were recently instituted around MHS, albeit late. However, we still need to educate our staff and students on organic waste prevention, as per the state law.
For background, SB 1383 targets more than 10,000 K-12 schools in California by requiring both commercial and organic recycling. Commercial recycling is the recycling of business and trade waste, like paper, plastic, cardboard, metal, and glass, according to Great Western Recycling. Organic recycling is defined as the composting of organic materials like food peels, wood, and yard trimmings, according to Dakota Valley Recycling.
The actual implementation of SB 1383 entails that school districts subscribe to a collection service or self-haul the organic waste to a specific composting facility, according to CalRecycle. Thankfully, we’ve met this requirement. MHS has a composting bin in the student parking lot for the collection of organic waste, and the district is directly partnered with Republic Services to collect and process the waste, according to Director of Maintenance, Operation, & Transportation (MOT) Van Nguyen.
However, this bill also requires that our schools educate staff and students on organic waste prevention, inspect organic waste containers, and properly label the organic waste containers to prevent confusion. Although MHS has properly labeled composting bins around campus, students are often either confused about or totally ignoring the plastered directions on the composting bins, leading the bins to be filled with plastic products instead of organic waste. It’s not enough to make these bins available; we need to set up a system of education and enforcement so students use them in the right way.
On a positive note, our district has complied with the composting mandate for 2024: the Edible Food Recovery Program. Through our district’s recent Food Recovery Program, students can bring home extra food that would have been thrown away, and local food banks and nonprofit organizations can collect the nonperishable products for their own services.
Ultimately, 53% of all our waste—about 136 million tons in 2014—ends up in landfills, according to Addison County Solid Waste Management; 22% of that waste is food scraps. Clearly, composting matters, and education is key; thankfully, MOT Director Nguyen voiced the district’s commitment to educating students and staff in an email.
Now, our district needs to act as soon as possible and be more vigilant on following deadlines to educate our students and staff on how to recycle and compost—we need to take accountability for our commercial and organic waste.