The Brief

Long Beach residents are getting new green bins as the city rolls out a new recycling program for food waste.

The final phase of the rollout in L.A. County’s second-largest city is set to wrap up by the end of the year. It comes three years after a state law went into effect that mandates food waste be kept out of landfills.

Officially called SB 1383, the law requires all cities, counties, institutions, residents and businesses to divert food and other organic waste from landfills. Instead, that waste will be composted, donated, or turned into fuel. California is the second state in the U.S. after Vermont to pass such a law.

The reason? Landfills are filling up and much of the stuff in them is food waste. Food waste in landfills across the U.S. has tripled since the 1960s, and when it decomposes, it releases methane, a powerful greenhouse gas that heats up the planet. Because of that, landfills are California’s third largest source of methane emissions.

How the program works

The city of Long Beach took a different approach to rolling out its program from most major cities — they started requiring businesses to use the bins first. That program has been in action since 2023.

 ”They are one of the largest food generators and also there are fewer accounts,” said Dalia Gonzalez, with the city’s public works department, of the reasoning.

On the residential side, the city rolled out its pilot program for single-family homes last year in October. Now they’re in the final phase of rolling out green bins to homes and apartments across the city, with the expectation that everyone will have green bins by October, Gonzalez said.

“We wanted to make sure that this program was implemented the right way and that we didn't just roll out carts across the whole city,” Gonzalez said, adding that the city has worked on staffing for the program, as well as community education and outreach.

It also took time to negotiate new contracts with waste haulers and identify where all the food waste will go, Gonzalez said.

All of the food and yard waste in the city’s new green bins will go to three large-scale composting facilities, according to the city:  Recology Blossom Valley Organics near Bakersfield, Sage Ranch Compost in Riverside County and American Organics in Victorville. Those facilities then sell the compost to nearby farms.

As part of the program, the city’s purple bins for recyclables will be retired and recycled, then replaced with blue bins. That rollout will start in early 2026.

How to use the green bin

Long Beach residents simply need to toss all their food waste — vegetable scraps, chicken bones, coffee grinds, egg shells and any other organic waste — into the green bin.

You can store the waste in your freezer to prevent smells, and toss it in the bin in a paper bag, which can also be composted. Plastic bags may contaminate the compost, so officials urge residents to put their food waste in paper bags, paper towels or go without a bag instead.

So-called “compostable” bags are also a no-no — the composting facilities are unable to break that material down, Gonzalez said.

Read LAist’s full guide on how to compost, with answers to frequently asked questions, here.

Will my bills go up? 

Yes. Diverting food waste is more expensive than tossing it in a landfill, so trash rates are going up across California. At the same time, SB 1383 is an unfunded state mandate, so cities have to figure out how to cover the cost themselves.

In Long Beach, rates are going up about $15 this month and depend on bin size.

Gonzalez said the city is urging residents to try out their new bin for at least two weeks before requesting a smaller green bin.

“It does take a while to get used to this new service,” she said. “We don't want them to get a smaller bin and then realize, actually I did need that size.”

California will not become the first state to levy a wealth tax on its richest residents — at least not this election.

Voters rejected Proposition 40, a proposal to tax billionaires based on their net worth and financial holdings, by 52.8% to 47.2%, according to The Associated Press Monday. The measure had trailed behind for days before The Associated Press confirmed results.

Leaders for Service Employees International Union-United Healthcare Workers West, the union pushing the measure, seemed to concede the race minutes before the polls closed but vowed to try again in 2028 if California’s Legislature “fails to deliver a real solution” to fund healthcare hammered by recent federal law.

“That’s not a hypothetical. That’s our plan,” said Dave Regan, president of SEIU-UHW.

Election Day was projected to be an all-around defeat for the union, known for aggressively pursuing ballot measures. Voters defeated union-backed Proposition 44, an effort to control how clinics spend money. Proposition 42, a billionaire tax countermeasure prohibiting future wealth taxes, was leading Monday evening by 51.6% to 48.4%. That measure could get in the way of SEIU-UHW’s future plans to try taxing wealth again.

The billionaire tax would have generated $100 billion for healthcare and education through a one-time, 5% tax on billionaires, according to SEIU-UHW. Opponents of the measure celebrated its defeat.

“Proposition 40 was a reckless experiment conducted on our state’s economy with little regard for the harms it would cause,” according to a statement from Evan Westrop, a campaign strategist for No on Prop. 40.

The opposition campaign, which was backed by wealthy tech investors and healthcare organizations, argued the measure had already driven billionaires from the state and permanently harmed income tax revenue. On Monday they said the state still faces “enormous pressure” to find other ways to fund healthcare hit by federal cuts.

Billionaire tax divided Democrats

From the outset, Prop. 40 revealed divisions among the Democratic Party and galvanized some of Silicon Valley’s wealthiest executives to spend hundreds of millions to defeat it.

Gov. Gavin Newsom became one of its earliest opponents, attempting through backroom negotiations to keep it off of the ballot altogether. He endorsed the billionaire-backed counter measure, Prop. 42, designed to ban all wealth taxes in California and kill Prop. 40. Newsom, along with Democratic allies such as Planned Parenthood of California and California Teachers Association, argued a one-time tax would not solve the state’s fiscal woes and would drive wealthy residents out of state.

The California Democratic Party and California Federation of Labor Unions supported the initiative and opposed its counter measures, arguing the state needed more revenue to shield workers and everyday Californians from the effects of dramatic federal healthcare cuts expected to kick 2 million residents off of health insurance.

Lorena Gonzalez, former Assemblymember and president of the California Federation of Labor Unions, said Prop. 40’s failure puts even more pressure on state and federal lawmakers to backfill federal Medicaid cuts.

Supporters of Prop. 40 blamed its loss on billionaires vastly outspending the Yes campaign, which raised $33.5 million.

“That is incredibly corrosive and corrupting to our democracy and our political system, and that's been dominating the discussion here in California,” Regan said.

Billionaires poured hundreds of millions of dollars into the campaign to stop Prop. 40. Google co-founder Sergey Brin led the charge, publicly moving out of state and donating $102 million to Building a Better California, a political committee he founded to oppose the tax. The group has served as a passthrough for other billionaire donors to oppose Prop. 40, including by funding the counterpropositions 41 and 42. Collectively, ultra-wealthy opponents donated $378.4 million to oppose the billionaire tax.

In a statement, Abby Lunardini, a spokesperson for Building a Better California, said the billionaire tax threatened to limit revenue for all services in California, including healthcare, by driving economic interests out of the state.

“It was a lose-lose for California, and voters clearly agreed,” Lunardini said.

Ultimately, opponents’ efforts succeeded.

Polling just ahead of the election indicated falling support for Prop. 40 despite growing sentiment for taxing billionaires more in general. According to a UC Berkeley Citrin-POLITICO poll, 45% of voters believed in taxing billionaires more to fund public services compared to 35% who believed the state should prioritize keeping billionaires in state because of the tax revenue and jobs they generate — but just 46% favored Prop. 40.

Infighting among Democrats could have also contributed to Prop. 40’s demise, said John Matsusaka, an economist and direct democracy expert at USC, ahead of the election. Research shows money doesn’t buy people’s votes or values on core issues like abortion, Matsusaka said, but it can exploit uncertainty.

“People these days are very tribal. When your tribe is arguing, people start to listen to the counterarguments,” Matsusaka said.

This article was originally published on CalMatters and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license.

This story first appeared on The LA Local.

After an hourslong, late-night standoff between Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents and community members outside Adventist Health White Memorial over the weekend, local leaders are demanding answers from hospital leadership. 

The hospital has previously faced scrutiny over claims that its administrators have allowed federal immigration agents to interfere in patient care. 

On Saturday, state Sen. María Elena Durazo marched with community members from Mariachi Plaza to the hospital to hand-deliver a letter to White Memorial President Daniel Fontoura. The letter, signed by elected officials and community leaders, calls for an end to any collaboration that may exist between the hospital and federal immigration agents. 

The night before, ICE agents clashed with protesters near the hospital and blocked the hospital’s ambulance entrance. According to White Memorial, ambulances were diverted for about two hours during the incident. Two U.S. citizens were also detained by federal agents. 

Federal immigration agents were at White Memorial Friday night because someone in their custody had been taken to the emergency room, according to hospital officials and the Los Angeles Police Department. 

“What happened last night was unacceptable,” Durazo told Fontoura in the parking lot of White Memorial, steps away from where ICE agents had been standing shoulder to shoulder just hours earlier. “It’s unacceptable that ICE would go into our healthcare facilities. But we also believe that White Memorial can and should do more.”

Fontoura told the group that the hospital has “no special relationship, no special contract” with ICE. “When they show up, they show up,” Fontoura said, referring to the federal agents. 

Fontoura said hospital staff took care of the person who was brought in by ICE and claimed they denied the agents’ request to “break protocol” and be in the same room as the patient and their physician. “We said no,” Fontoura said. 

Boyle Heights Beat asked White Memorial whether these privacy protections are standard practice and whether federal agents follow them while at the hospital. The hospital did not respond before publication. 

Last year, Adventist Health released a six-point statement outlining its policies to protect detained patients and support staff, but doctors and advocates at the time said it was not enough. 

Now Durazo and others are calling for more accountability and stricter guidelines from the hospital on how they respond to ICE activity. 

The letter requests a written response from hospital leadership by Nov. 21. It is signed by Durazo, Assemblymember Mark Gonzalez, Mayor-elect Nithya Raman, Councilmember Ysabel Jurado and other community leaders from Proyecto Pastoral, CHIRLA and more.

White Memorial has not responded to Boyle Heights Beat’s request for comment on the letter.

If the concerns remain unresolved, those who signed the letter say they will ask the California attorney general to review White Memorial’s compliance with state law.

“For ICE to show up the way they did, it takes a much higher level of consciousness and determination by the hospital to stop them from doing this,” Durazo told Boyle Heights Beat after the rally on Saturday. “We don’t have absolute power over ICE, we know that, but we do have some power over ICE.” 

Nithya Raman turned the tide in the L.A. mayoral race by winning over large swathes of the city that voted for Karen Bass in 2022, according to an LAist analysis of election data.

Bass was a favorite in many areas that voted for Rick Caruso when she faced him in 2022. She held onto a majority of voters across South L.A., but lost much of her previous support. She outperformed Raman in areas where Spencer Pratt, the third-place primary finisher, saw strong turnout in June.

The switchup came after Bass — a veteran in progressive politics — took a relatively-conservative approach on issues like policing and high-density housing developments compared to Raman, a member of the Democratic Socialists of America.