Solid waste: compostable materials.

Plain English Breakdown

The candidate explanation includes a claim about the Department's ability to further increase limits, which is implied but not directly supported by the provided official source material.

Compostable Materials: Exemptions and Regulations

This law changes the rules for composting by removing square-foot limits on exempted activities, increasing volume allowances for private operations and public agencies, adding large-scale biomass management events as an excluded activity, and raising annual giveaway or sale limits.

What This Bill Does

• Expands the amount of compostable material that can be handled without a permit from 100 cubic yards to up to 200 cubic yards for private operations and up to 500 cubic yards for public agencies.
• Removes the square-foot limit on exempted composting activities.
• Adds large-scale biomass management events at agricultural facilities as an excluded activity.
• Increases the annual amount of compost that can be given away or sold from 1,000 cubic yards to up to 5,000 cubic yards.

Who It Names or Affects

• People who handle compostable materials for private operations.
• Public agencies involved in large-scale biomass management events at agricultural facilities.
• The Department of Resources Recycling and Recovery, which oversees regulations on composting.

Terms To Know

Compost

Decomposed organic material used as a soil conditioner or fertilizer.

Tier

A level of regulation for composting operations, each with different requirements and restrictions.

Limits and Unknowns

• The exact limits on the amount of compost that can be given away or sold may change based on future regulations by the Department of Resources Recycling and Recovery.
• This law does not specify an effective date for when these changes will take place.

Official Summary Text

SB 279, McNerney.
Solid waste: compostable materials.
Existing law requires the Department of Resources Recycling and Recovery to adopt and revise regulations setting forth minimum standards for composting, in accordance with law. Existing regulations require all compostable materials handling activities to obtain a permit prior to commencing operations and to comply with specified requirements. Existing regulations specify 4 regulatory tiers for composting operations, with different requirements for each tier. The 4 tiers are excluded, enforcement agency notification, registration permit, and full solid waste facility permit.
In the excluded tier, existing regulations specify the “excluded activities” that do not constitute compostable material handing operations or facilities and, therefore, are not subject to permit requirements or other regulatory requirements. One of the excluded activities
is the composting of green material, agricultural material, food material, and vegetative food material, alone or in combination, if the total amount of feedstock and compost onsite at any one time does not exceed 100 cubic yards and 750 square feet.
This bill would expand this excluded activity exemption for composting activities by eliminating the maximum square-foot condition and authorizing a total amount of feedstock and compost onsite at any one time of up to 200 cubic yards, or 500 cubic yards
for a composting activity owned by a public agency, as defined. The bill would also authorize the Department of Resources Recycling and Recovery to further increase those amounts by regulation. The bill would also make the composting of agricultural materials and residues that are from a large-scale biomass management event at an agricultural facility that does not otherwise operate as a solid waste facility an excluded activity, as specified.
Existing regulations prohibit a composting operation from giving away or selling more than 1,000 cubic yards of compost product annually if it is in the excluded tier or if it is an agricultural material
composting operation in the enforcement agency notification tier, its feedstock is both green material and agricultural material, and the operation is located on land zoned for agricultural uses.
This bill would authorize composting activities to give away or sell up to 5,000 cubic yards of compost product annually. The bill would authorize the Department of Resources Recycling and Recovery to increase, by regulation, that amount when the composting is of agricultural materials and residues that are from a large-scale biomass management event at an agricultural facility.

Current Bill Text

Download Bill PDF