Long Beach residents will get green bins to reduce food waste in landfills

Long Beach is expanding its organic waste collection program next month as part of a state requirement to significantly reduce food waste in landfills by 2025.

That means some 8,000 homes in 13 areas around the city will start receiving new bins on Oct. 14: Green ones to compost food wastes, yard trimmings and paper bags; blue ones for recycling.

The residential program expands on the city’s organic waste collection program for commercial businesses that started in 2021.

“The trash that goes into landfills is over 50% food waste, basically anything you consume you could put in the compost,” Lauren Pretty, owner of the sustainable restaurant Heritage in Long Beach, told LAist.

“With the addition of all these other homes participating in this program, I do think that we're going to be using this slurry successfully someday and it seems like we're not very far away from that,” Pretty added, referring to the semi-liquid compost made with organic waste that can be used as bio-fuel.

Complying with state landfill law

Long Beach is the latest in a number of cities to provide residential homes with compost bins. Last year, Los Angeles started requiring residents to separate green waste from other trash. It’s all part of a state mandate meant to be reached by 2025 that would reduce organic waste in state landfills by 75%. State officials say the emission reduction would be equivalent to taking about 1 million cars off the road for a year.

“By launching the organics collection program, our city is taking a significant step towards a greener future and aligning with the state's broader efforts to combat climate change,” Long Beach Mayor Rex Richardson said in a statement.

The new bin roll-out for Long Beach residents is expected to be completed by 2025.

Pro-tips

As a restaurant with a stated goal of letting no edible parts of an ingredient go to waste, Heritage was one of the first businesses in Long Beach to sign on to the commercial green waste collection program several years ago.

Still, “it definitely takes some getting used to,” restaurateur Pretty said. “It has a stench and we take it out twice a day. We don’t let our inside trash can fill up all the way because it does create a lot of juice.”

Her pro-tips for residents is to be mindful of just how full their green composting bin gets, since it can get heavy, and to clean it once a week to keep pests from festering.

Ultimately, Pretty said the extra work is worth it. She added that she hopes “the citizens of Long Beach can all rally behind the city attempting this huge, important project and…start creating a more sustainable future for ourselves.”