Effective immediately, all Los Angeles Sanitation and Environment customers should use the green bin to dispose of all food scraps and food-soiled paper, along with their existing yard waste. This is due to California Senate Bill 1383, which requires jurisdictions to reduce the disposal of their organic waste from landfills by 75% by 2025.

The Board of Public Works and the Los Angeles City Council have approved the necessary contracts with the companies that will process the compostable materials for the city, enabling the program to move forward, at no cost to customers.

“We appreciate the leadership of the city for moving expeditiously to make this new program come to life,” said LASAN executive director and general manager Barbara Romero. “LASAN is committed to diverting food waste from the landfill in order to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and create better air quality throughout Los Angeles. We have been preparing for the launch of OrganicsLA for years and are anxious for this next phase to begin.”

During the summer of 2022, LASAN’s curbside collection of compostable material was expanded from the initial 2019-2021 pilot program of 18,000 households to 40,000 households. Now all 750,000 LASAN residential customers are encouraged to compost their food scraps together with yard trimmings, including sticks and leaves, through the city’s curbside composting collection program.

To help residents start collecting food scraps, the city is providing 2-gallon kitchen pails. These pails are available for pick-up at participating distribution sites, one pail per household, while supplies last. Residents can start making appointments to pick up their pails through the LASAN’s scheduling system at lacitysan.org/organics with pail pickup starting on Jan. 23. For residents who require ADA accessibility, pails can be requested for delivery.