Roseville’s Commercial Organics Recycling Program

Roseville, Calif. – Roseville has begun phasing in a commercial organics waste recycling program, which will apply to about 90 businesses in the first year and grow over time, to meet a new statewide requirement to reduce organic waste in the landfill. 

Commercial businesses, like restaurants, coffee shops, and other places that generate food waste will be required to source separate organic waste from regular trash. Because of a new law that passed last year, the state now requires that solid waste providers implement an organics recycling program statewide over the course of several years based on the amount of waste businesses produce.

Embracing the new law

“We’re embracing the new law head on, creating a program that will help customers comply with new regulations,” said Devin Whittington, refuse utility manager with the City of Roseville. “It is our hope that we can meet the statewide requirement to reduce the amount of food waste that enters the landfill, create opportunities to recycle it into something useful and minimize impacts to our business customers.  With our program, we are confident that we’ll meet those objectives.”

To implement this new service, Environmental Utilities has developed a new rate structure and a comprehensive program that businesses can subscribe to, including weekly pick up service.

Local Landfills

This law aims to keep organic waste out of landfills and reduce greenhouse gas emissions by diverting this waste from landfills. In fact, recyclable organic waste accounts for about 40 percent of the material Californians dispose in landfills annually. With this program, it will help the state meet its goal to recycle 75 percent of its waste by 2020.

We are working with the Western Placer Waste Management Authority on a local processing solution to recycle this food waste material. One benefit of this new program includes the creation of energy using biosolids found in food waste. In the coming years, new infrastructure at one of our wastewater treatment facilities will allow us to process solid waste streams, like organic material found in food waste, into biogas to create energy or Compressed Natural Gas (CNG). In the meantime, Roseville’s food waste will be processed outside of Placer County to create compost and generate CNG at Clean World Partners.