BILL ANALYSIS �
AB 1594
SENATE COMMITTEE ON ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY
Senator Jerry Hill, Chair
2013-2014 Regular Session
BILL NO: AB 1594
AUTHOR: Williams
AMENDED: June 12, 2014
FISCAL: Yes HEARING DATE: June 25, 2014
URGENCY: No CONSULTANT: Rebecca Newhouse
SUBJECT : ALTERNATIVE DAILY COVER: GREEN WASTE
SUMMARY :
Existing law , under the California Integrated Waste Management
Act of 1989 (Act):
1) Requires each city or county source reduction and recycling
element to include an implementation schedule that shows a
city or county must divert 25% of solid waste from landfill
disposal or transformation by January 1, 1995, and must
divert 50% of solid waste on and after January 1, 2000
through source reduction, recycling, and composting
activities (Public Resources Code (PRC) �41780).
2) Establishes a state policy goal that 75% of solid waste
generated be diverted from landfill disposal through source
reduction, recycling, or composting by 2020 (PRC �41780.01).
3) Provides that the use of solid waste for beneficial reuse in
the construction and operation of a solid waste landfill,
including the use of alternative daily cover (ADC),
constitutes diversion through recycling and is not considered
disposal (PRC �41781.3).
4) Requires each operator of a disposal facility to pay a
quarterly fee based on the amount of all solid waste disposed
of at each disposal site, and sets the fee for solid waste at
$1.34 per ton (PRC �48000).
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This bill :
1) Defines "green material" as any plant material that is either
separated at the point of generation, or separated at a
centralized facility that employs methods to minimize
contamination, and specifies that green waste does not
include treated wood waste, materials left over from the
composting or material recovery process or construction and
demolition waste.
2) Specifies that on and after January 1, 2020, the use of green
material as ADC does not constitute diversion and shall be
considered disposal.
3) Requires jurisdictions, commencing August 1, 2018, to include
in their annual reporting, information on how they intend to
comply with the above requirement.
4) Requires the Department of Resources Recycling and Recovery
(CalRecycle) to consider specified factors and make a
determination whether or not a jurisdiction has made a good
faith effort to divert green materials if that jurisdiction
will no longer be in compliance with the 50% diversion
requirement as a result of using green materials as ADC after
January 1, 2020.
5) Specifies that green materials used as ADC at landfills are
not subject to the fee imposed on disposed solid waste on and
after January 1, 2020.
COMMENTS :
1) Purpose of Bill . According to the author, "Existing law
requires local governments to 'divert' 50% of all solid waste
from disposal at landfills or incinerators, but allows yard
trimmings to be counted as diverted when sent to a landfill
for use as 'Daily Cover.'
"'Daily cover' or Alternative Daily Cover (ADC) is material
used as a temporary overlay on an exposed face of a landfill
at the end of every working day, which provides a barrier
from odor and insects. The material used most often is yard
trimmings or green waste.
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"The deficiency in the law is that yard trimmings used as
alternative daily cover (ADC), and are essentially
landfilled, are counted as 'diversion.' This calculation
toward a local government's recycling credit creates a
perverse incentive to use green materials for ADC instead of
other more environmentally friendly uses like compost. In
addition to encouraging the wasteful landfilling of this
material, this policy is a leading barrier to the expansion
of the state's valuable composting and bioenergy industries."
AB 1594 will phase out the diversion credit for green waste
used as ADC.
2) Background .
ADC . Landfill operators are required to cover all solid
waste at the end of each day to control odors, vectors,
fires, litter, and scavenging. Federal regulations require
that cover consist of six inches of earthen materials, but
also permit operators to use alternative measures, generally
referred to as Alternative Daily Cover, or ADC. CalRecycle
has 11 approved ADC material types. Generally, these
materials must be processed so that they do not allow gaps in
the exposed landfill face. Specific types of ADC authorized
in California include: geosynthetic fabric (tarps); sewage
sludge; ash and cement kiln dust; treated auto shredder waste
(auto fluff); foam products; contaminated sediment, dredge
soils, foundry sands, and energy exploration and production
waste; compost materials; processed construction and
demolition waste; shredded tires; and, green materials.
Solid waste diversion . Current law requires local
jurisdictions to divert 50% of solid waste from landfilling
by source reduction, recycling and composting.
AB 1647 (Bustamante), Chapter 978, Statutes of 1996,
established that local jurisdictions may use ADC as a
strategy to achieve their waste diversion goals by deeming
ADC recycling, and therefore counting towards the 50%
diversion requirement for jurisdictions.
While a large number of jurisdictions use green materials as
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ADC, only 11 of the state's 416 jurisdictions would drop
below their required diversion rate if green materials used
as ADC no longer counted as diversion.
In 2012 (the most recent data available), approximately 1.6
million tons of green material was used as ADC. Use has
gradually decreased since 2005, when it peaked at
approximately 3 million tons.
3) 75% Directive . CalRecycle is tasked with diverting at least
75% of solid waste statewide by 2020. Currently, organic
materials, including green waste, make up one-third of the
waste stream (approximately 11 million tons) and food
continues to be the highest single category of disposal at
over 15%. Green materials, such as lumber, cardboard, and
leaves and grass comprise over 20%.
CalRecycle is also charged with implementing its Strategic
Directive 6.1, which calls for reducing organic waste disposal
by 50% by 2020. According to CalRecycle, significant gains in
organic waste diversion (through recycling technologies for
organic waste including composting and anaerobic digestion)
are necessary to meet the 75% goal and to implement Strategic
Directive 6.1. Anaerobic digestion, which produces biogas
that can be processed to biomethane fuel, is particularly
suited to handle food waste. Green waste is more efficiently
processed through composting. Compost, in addition to
improving the quality of soil, prevents soil erosion, reduces
the need for chemical fertilizers and pesticides, and enables
better soil water retention.
AB 1594 does not prohibit the disposal of green materials in
landfills, but simply eliminates diversion credit for using
green materials as ADC. This may encourage local
jurisdictions previously disposing large quantities of green
materials as ADC in landfills, to develop or expand their
organics processing infrastructure in order to produce
valuable end products, such as compost, biogas and mulch.
4) Tip fees . The Act requires that each ton of solid waste
deposited in a landfill be subject to a fee of $1.40 per ton.
Tipping fees are generally used to fund daily operational
and closure costs of a landfill, but may also be used to fund
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recycling programs, litter abatement, public education
efforts and other programs. A local tipping fee can act as
an incentive to encourage certain practices or disincentive
so as to discourage other practices. Previous legislation
capped the tipping fee at this level.
The application of ADC is considered recycling under
California law and is not subject to CalRecycle's $1.40 per
ton disposal fee.
In an effort to further discourage the use of green material
as ADC, an earlier version of AB 1594 required that green
material used as ADC, considered disposal and not recycling
after January 1, 2020, be subject to this disposal fee on and
after that date. This provision was removed as an amendment
taken when the bill was released from the Assembly Suspense
file.
5) Greenhouse Gasses and Green Material ADC . Landfill gas is
generated by the anaerobic decomposition of organic materials
such as food, paper, wood, and green material. Fifty percent
of landfill gas is methane, a greenhouse gas (GHG) that is 25
times more efficient at trapping heat than carbon dioxide.
Under AB 32, landfill methane capture regulations were
adopted as a discrete early action item, and requires owners
and operators of certain uncontrolled municipal solid waste
landfills to install gas collection and control systems, and
requires existing and newly installed gas and control systems
to operate in an optimal manner. Often, these systems
involve a combustion step as a way to reduce the emissions of
methane and other organics. However, significant amounts of
methane from landfills continue to escape into the
atmosphere. According to Air Resources Board's updated
Scoping Plan, approximately 8 million tons of CO2 equivalent
are released annually by landfills. That number is expected
to increase to 8.5 million tons of CO2 equivalent by 2020.
Recycling organic waste provides significant GHG reductions
over landfilling. Composting and other organics processing
technologies, including anaerobic digestion, reduce GHGs by
avoiding the emissions that would be generated by the
material's decomposition in a landfill.
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6) Good Faith Effort . Under current law, CalRecycle reviews
disposal information from jurisdictions at regular intervals.
If a jurisdiction is not able to comply with the 50%
diversion mandate, CalRecycle makes a determination whether
that jurisdiction made a "good faith effort" to meet the
requirement. If a good faith effort is determined by
CalRecycle to have been made by the jurisdiction, they are
deemed in compliance. In order for CalRecycle to pursue
enforcement action, they must determine that the city or
county failed to make a good faith effort to meet the state's
diversion requirements.
AB 1594 uses a similar framework and requires CalRecycle to
make a determination as to whether a jurisdiction not able to
comply with the 50% diversion mandate due to the phase out of
green material as ADC, made a "good faith effort" to divert
those green materials.
AB 1594 requires jurisdictions that are not in compliance
with the 50% diversion mandate due to elimination of ADC
diversion credit for green materials, to identify barriers to
siting green material recycling facilities, and to submit a
plan to address those barriers to CalRecycle.
It is unclear whether this requirement is for both
jurisdictions deemed to have made a good faith effort, and
those that are deemed to have not made a good faith effort.
Even if jurisdictions have made a good faith effort to
comply, they should still be required to identify barriers
and develop a plan to address those barriers to meet the
state's diversion requirements.
An amendment is needed to clarify that the provision in the
bill requiring reporting to CalRecycle identifying barriers
to siting green material recycling facilities and a plan to
address these barriers, applies to jurisdictions that do not
meet the 50% diversion mandate due to the elimination of ADC
diversion credit as green materials, whether or not they have
been deemed by CalRecycle to have made a good faith effort in
complying with the requirements of the bill.
7) Green Material Recycling Facility . The bill refers to "green
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material recycling facilities" in the consideration process
by CalRecycle for whether jurisdictions have made good faith
efforts to recycle green materials, and later refers to
"green waste recycling facilities." For consistency and
clarity, a technical amendment is needed to replace all
references to "green waste recycling facilities" in the bill
to "green material recycling facilities."
SOURCE : Californians Against Waste
California Compost Coalition
SUPPORT : Agromin
American Biogas Council
Association of Compost Producers
Biodegradable Products Institute
Bioenergy Association of California
Breathe California
California Climate & Agriculture Network
California Biomass Energy Alliance
California Coastal Protection Network
California Compost Coalition
California League of Conservation Voters
California Organics Recycling Council
California Refuse Recycling Council
California Releaf
California Resource Recovery Association
Center for Biological Diversity
City of Los Angeles
City of San Francisco
City of Santa Barbara
City of Thousand Oaks
CleanPower Campaign
CleanWorld
Coalition for Clean Air
County of San Francisco
County of Santa Barbara
Community Alliance with Family Farmers
Costa Mesa Sanitary District Board of Directors
CR&R Environmental Services
Ecology Center
Environment California
Frank M. Booth Design Build Co.
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GAIA
Global Green USA
Grassroots Recycling Network
Greenaction
Greenwaste Recovery
Integrated Waste Management Consulting
LAANE
Napa Recycling and Waste Services
Natural Resources Defense Council
Natureworks, LLC
Northern California Recycling Association
Northern Recycling and Waste Services
Novamont, North America, Inc.
Peabody Engineering
Planning and Conservation League
Quackenbush Mountain Resource Recovery &
Compost Facility
Recology
Rethink Waste
Sierra Club California
Sonoma Compost Co.
Tracy Material Recovery and Transfer Facility
Upper Valley Disposal Recycling
US Composting Council
Vasko Electric, Inc.
Waste Management
Z-Best Composting
OPPOSITION : City of Diamond Bar
City of Monrovia
County Sanitation Districts of Los Angeles County
Los Angeles County Solid Waste Management
Committee/Integrated Waste Management Task
Force