California Organics Recycling Program Carries Fines for Violations

Earlier this month, the city of Anaheim, Cali. rolled out a new organics recycling program which will attempt to reduce the amount of organic waste making it to landfills.

The change will impact Anaheim residents and how they dispose of their waste.

"We used to put everything in the black trash bin and yard waste would go in the brown bin," Erin Ryan, spokesperson for the city, said. "Now, residents are putting the yard waste and food waste in the brown bin and that is going to a composting facility offsite in the Inland Empire."

The program considers organics as food scraps, food-soiled paper and paper bags, plus yard waste, grass clippings, leaves, weeds, and small branches.

"There's a lot of tips and tricks that are available that we're here to share with our residents to help everyone transition into this new way of sorting our food waste from the main trash," Ryan added.

The organics program stems from a 2016 law which aims to reduce pollution emissions such as methane gas.

Residents who fail to follow the law could be fined $100 for their first offense under the program.

"There will be inspections where people will go out and open the lids of all of the bins and just check to make sure people are disposing of recyclables correctly, trash and food waste and yard waste; those organic items," she said. "We want to make sure they're doing it right."

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