This week, the Legislature passed additional budget bills that, among many other things, provide $168 million for organics waste recycling as part of a total allocation of a $205 million solid waste recycling package. Senate Bill 170 (a budget bill) and Senate Bill 155 (a budget trailer bill) were both passed by the Legislature and are expected to be signed by the Governor in the coming days.
The package includes $70 million for organic waste recycling infrastructure, including composting, in-vessel digestion, and preprocessing activities. Another $60 million is allocated to CalRecycle to award as grants to local governments for SB 1383 organic waste regulation implementation. This pot is expected to be particularly appealing to local governments as they begin implementing their new organic waste recycling programs.
The organic waste recycling package also includes $5 million for community composting, $3 million for edible food recovery and food waste prevention, and $10 million for organic waste co-digestion projects at existing wastewater treatment plants.
Other solid waste funding in the budget includes $25 million for recycling market development, which is accompanied by many other programmatic changes to help finance recycling infrastructure and markets. $10 million is devoted to improving the quality of PET plastic beverage containers collected in curbside collection programs.
RCRC worked with CSAC, the League of California Cities, and Californians Against Waste to request $200 million in the budget to assist local governments implement new SB 1383 organic waste recycling regulations. That letter can be found here. RCRC also joined a large stakeholder coalition requesting an additional $200 million for organic waste recycling infrastructure. That coalition letter can be found here.
We sincerely appreciate the efforts of Senators Nancy Skinner and John Laird and Assembly Members Phil Ting and Richard Bloom to secure this funding. Please contact John Kennedy, RCRC Legislative Advocate, for more information.