Recycle your food garbage or get fined? New California composting/recycling law to take effect in 2022

Here's something we bet that most of you haven't heard about, or, if you did, forgot all about it. A new California law that will require everyone to stop throwing their food scraps/waste into the regular garbage takes effect in 2022. 

Will Big Brother be snooping around your garbage cans to see if you improperly disposed of those inedible leftovers? 

Photo credit: CalRecycle

Senate Bill 1383, which was signed into law by then Governor Jerry Brown in 2016, will require California residents to separate their coffee grinds, food scraps, egg shells, potato peelings, and just about every other piece of organic food waste from their other garbage and either make compost out of it, take it to a recycling center, or put it in the same recycle bins for green waste that they have been using for years.

The purpose of the new law is to reduce the amount of uncontrolled methane emissions generated from landfills by decomposing organic wastes. Methane is a very potent greenhouse gas, with a warming effect several times that of CO2.

Failure to do so may result in individual daily fines beginning in January 2024 ranging from $50 to $100 for a first offense to $500 for subsequent offenses. Cities that fail to comply may face fines of up to $10,000 a day!

Additional requirements of the new law effect businesses that generate these wastes, as well as a requirement that supermarkets donate unused but edible food normally destined for the garbage dumps to food banks for the needy. 

The collected waste must be directed to anaerobic digestor facilities for conversion into biofuels and electricity or to composting facilities to make soil amendments. And the resultant compost made by those public facilities (many of which don't even exist yet!) must be used. Just where and who will be using the thousands of tons of such compost generated remains undetermined.

The new requirements will increase the waste disposal fees paid by homeowners and businesses, with estimates ranging from 1% to 20% or more.

However, because current infrastructure is not be set up to handle the increased volumes, except in a few cities and counties that have already been implementing a similar program, the law gives the affected governments until 2024 to enact local ordinances that will address the requirements.

California Environmental News (CEN) reached out to the Kern County Public Works Department for clarification and is still awaiting a response. The Department's recycling hotline was not working, according to a recorded message, and no one answered the general information telephone.  

At the moment, CEN is unsure whether food scraps must be placed in green waste bins or not. CEN recommends contacting your local government waste department to determine what, if anything, you must do and when.

For more information: SB1383 Summary

The Ocean Cleanup thinks they've finally come up with a way to remove plastic pollution from our oceans

Plastic pollution in the oceans is a monumental problem. Here's a story about one young man's efforts to clean it up - Boyan Slat, now 27, and the founder of The Ocean Cleanup, a nonprofit organization, has been working on this since he was 19.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/half-mile-installation-just-took-124200162.html

Photo Credit: The Ocean Cleanup

However,...

At current plastic dumping rates of 11 million metric tons per year, it would take a fleet of over 5,500 such devices to collect it. For perspective, the U.S. Navy has less than 500 ships.

Is this a realistic goal? Will it ever happen? What do you think?

California drought to continue with the return of La Niña

La Niña returns to impact California - will this drought never end?

See the article below for more information.

The worst drought ever?

Wildfire smoke and Covid19 Delta variant put Valley residents in a No-Win scenario

Just like many parts of the country, the Covid19 Delta variant is causing an increase in infections and hospitalizations in the San Joaquin Valley - especially among those of you who refuse to get vaccinated against it for whatever illogical reason you may have. 

As if that wasn't enough, wildfires that are still raging throughout California are causing severe air pollution problems in the Valley as well, so much so that the San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District (APCD) has just issued a Health Caution and an Air Quality Alert because of the harmful smoke from those fires.

As part of that caution, the APCD is recommending that people stay indoors and avoid activities outdoors. The APCD also says that the common cloth and paper masks being used for Covid19 protection may not offer sufficient protection against the particulate matter (PM) present in wildfire smoke.

This puts the average citizen in a quandary - should he/she stay inside or go outside? As you probably know, most health authorities have stressed that being outside offers more protection against Covid19 than being indoors. 

However, the APCD is saying that by going outdoors in this smoky environment, you are putting your health at a greater risk than staying inside.

What do you think? Leave your comments below if you have them. 

P.S. We have some dice if anyone wants to borrow them.

Use RAAN to see how bad the air outside really is

The San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District (APCD) issued an air quality alert for Valley residents yesterday due to smoke from California's wildfires. If you step outside and take a deep breath or just look at the hazy skies, you will quickly understand why. 

If you want to get a little more information on just how bad it really is as measured by ambient air quality monitors, then check out the APCD's Real-time Air Advisor Network (RAAN). By using either a free app or by typing in your zip code at the RAAN website, you can see what the ozone and PM2.5 levels are in your area right now and throughout the day.

Again, because of the risk to your health, the APCD recommends that you avoid strenuous outdoor activities until the skies clear to safer levels.

SJVAPCD issues air quality alert for San Joaquin Valley due to fire smoke

 The San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District (APCD) has just issued an air quality alert for the San Joaquin Valley. It doesn't end until Monday, August 9, at 5 PM.

The APCD urges everyone to stay indoors and especially avoid strenuous outdoor activities.

By ignoring wildfire emissions, is CARB painting too rosy a picture about statewide GHG reductions?

The California Air Resources Board (CARB) just released its greenhouse gas (GHG) inventory data report for 2019. CARB said the data shows that GHG reductions in the state are being reduced significantly more than the reductions that have been targeted by law.

However, buried within the press release and the report is information on another source of GHG whose numbers are not included in the inventory of reductions that CARB is praising.

Wildfire emissions.

Photo Credit: California Air Resources Board

CARB's latest data shows that GHG emissions statewide, exclusive of wildfires, went from 425 million metric tonnes in 2018 to 418 million metric tonnes in 2019. 

However, what CARB doesn't report is the increase in wildfire GHG emissions. Although wildfire CO2 emissions declined from 2018 to 2019 from 39.1 to 4.8 million metric tonnes CO2, in 2020 they increased to 106.7 million metric tonnes. And that latter number may be approached in 2021 as well considering the number of wildfires that have happened and are happening at this very moment throughout the state - and the normal wildfire season hasn't even officially started yet.

CA Wildfire Emissions, by Year - CARB

CARB and others have tried to dismiss concerns over wildfire CO2 emissions by referring to them as part of the natural carbon cycle. But the fact remains -  CO2 is CO2. The world and the physical climate change processes that result in the increasing temperatures of global warming do not care from where the CO2 comes. 

One can brag all one wants about reducing GHG emissions from transportation and industrial sources, but, the ship is still going to sink if you only bail out part of the water that is filling your boat.

What do you think? Please leave your comments below.

Will the world run out of Electric Vehicle (EV) batteries in 4 years?

Electric vehicles are seen as a key to reducing global CO2 emissions to positively impact adverse climate change effects from fossil fuels. Recent studies have shown that over an assumed vehicle lifetime, electric vehicles do have a smaller, cradle-to-grave overall environmental impact than traditional gasoline fueled vehicles. (Some of the assumptions used for vehicle life expectancy may be questionable - there isn't a lot of history of EVs operating for 100,000+ miles, for example - but, that's a discussion for another story!)

Photo Credit: Oleg Alexandrov, CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons; https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Tesla_Motors_Model_S_base.JPG

Bank of America financial analysts have just predicted that based on current and future sales predictions, as well as government mandates to reduce and/or possibly ban the sale of new fossil fueled fired vehicles, a worldwide EV battery shortage will occur as soon as 2025.

That's 4 years from now. What happens then? If you're driving a 10 year old EV and need to replace your battery (or buy/lease a new EV), how do you do it? Where will you go?

EVs have notoriously high upfront costs (which studies show are mitigated over an EV's lifetime after factoring in government tax incentives and general maintenance costs), but, there is this little Capitalism principal called the Law of Supply and Demand that is going to come into play here if this happens.

If people are being steered toward buying EVs because new fossil fueled cars are being frowned upon (if not banned), and, if the most important "part" of an EV (the battery!) is in short supply, guess what will happen?

The price of EVs will skyrocket.

Something to think about...your civil comments and thoughts may be made below.

Some recent items of interest

We here at California Environmental News have been so busy posting on social media, that we have forgotten all about our original site here at Blogger!

Below are some links to some recent stories that are of interest:

California Will Start Testing for ECU Tunes During Smog Checks Starting Next Week

Tuners beware! California has emission control rules for a reason and you aren't exempt just because you make your cars cooler than they were when you bought them.

Photo Credit: From Road and Track article via Ford YouTube

CARB settles with Albertsons grocery chain for $5.1 million for violations of the Refrigerant Management Program

$2.55 million to fund installation of school filtration system in L.A. area and to support a community-based project in Placer County

Remember the old Albertson's TV commercials, where the department managers would sing, "It's Joe Albertson's supermarket but the refrigeration department is mine (CARB's)!"

California oil regulators deny new fracking permits

California denied 21 oil drilling permits that would utilize fracking for AERA Energy in two of its oil fields. It is the latest development in the state's move toward banning fracking in the state.

A California Oilfield

Photo credit: Antandrus at English Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

Agricultural burning to nearly end in the San Joaquin Valley by 2025

The California Air Resources Board (CARB) announced yesterday that the practice of burning agricultural waste in the San Joaquin Valley will be reduced to near zero levels by 2025. CARB said it had partnered with the San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District (the District), farmers, and local communities in negotiating an end to a practice that has been occurring in the Valley for over 160 years.

Photo Credit: San Joaquin Valley APCD

The District has been able to reduce the amount of this burning by nearly 80% since 2013 in an effort to meet federal and state emission limits regarding PM2.5. The action announced yesterday builds upon the District's 2015 phase-down plan, which expired  on December 31, 2020, but had been extended until yesterday.

Current CARB Board member and former state Senator Dean Florez said, “California has accounted for over one-tenth of the value of the U.S. agricultural output - unfortunately part of that statistic is a practice that has been in existence since 1859, the Ag Burn. This dirty practice, utilized yearly for over 160 years, has caused increased ozone pollution, increased asthma rates, and severe health impairments. I began the process of ending agricultural burning 17 years ago with Senate Bill 703, which gave the California Air Board the ability to terminate this feudal practice through its negotiation power.” 

“Today is the day that ag burns will become a thing of the past. Working with health advocates, farmers and regulators, a declining cap starting from a 36 month countdown to a complete phaseout was produced, which is historic and brings finality to a one-cent match solution that has endangered Californian’s lungs for over a century.”

For further information:

CARB Partners with local air quality officials, farmers and communities to nearly eliminate agricultural burning in San Joaquin Valley by 2025

SJVAPCD issues health caution for high winds and blowing dust

The San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District (the District) today issued a health caution for strong winds and blowing dust. The notice covers Monday through Wednesday of this week.

The windy conditions may result in high concentrations of PM 10 (particulate matter 10 microns and smaller) that can result in serious health problems, including the triggering of asthma and bronchitis attacks, an increased risk of respiratory infections, and aggravate heart and lung disease. The District also recommends that older adults and children avoid prolonged exposures to these conditions.

Impacts are expected Monday and Tuesday in the Northern and Western counties of the District (San Joaquin, Stanislaus, Merced, Madera, Fresno, and Kings). The Valley portion of Kern County will be impacted beginning late Monday and lasting through early Wednesday.

The dusty conditions result from exceptionally dry soil in many areas as well as smoke from wood burning fireplaces. The District urges residents to refrain from using wood burning devices to help minimize these impacts.

More information is available at SJVAPCD or District offices in Fresno (559.230.6000), Modesto (209.557.6400), or Bakersfield (661.392.5500).