1 week Ago
The Los Angeles City Council approved a new program Wednesday to encourage more restaurants and residents to properly dispose of organic waste. The council voted 11-0 in favor of establishing the LA Organic Compliance Incentive Program, which is intended to support the city’s recycLA efforts and comply with Senate Bill 1383. The state law aims to achieve a 75% reduction in emissions of short-lived climate pollutants by 2025, and rescue at least 20% of currently disposed surplus food by the same year for people to eat.
Council members Kevin de León, Marqueece Harris-Dawson, Curren Price and Monica Rodriguez were absent during the vote. The move comes in response to a motion introduced by council members Katy Yaroslavsky and Hugo Soto-Martinez in February. According to city documents, the state law requires all residential and commercial customers to participate in organics recycling — and the council adopted an ordinance in December 2022 to comply with the bill.
However, the city currently lags in compliance, with only 32,414 or 48% of commercial and multifamily customers serviced by the city’s recycLA program compliant. LA Sanitation and Environment will allocate $4 million for the incentive program and assist qualified customers who are not subscribed to an organics service. Staff will offer a 64-gallon green bin to these customers, and the bin will be picked up once a week for up to nine months.
The incentive program is intended to maximize organics diversion and re.
