SB 1383 Requirements for Haulers

SB 1383 puts most of its duties on cities and counties, and those duties reach a hauler through two channels: the regulation’s own hauler sections, which require jurisdiction approval and delivery of organics to a facility that recovers them, and the franchise or contract terms a jurisdiction uses to pass down collection, container, contamination and reporting tasks. In practice a California hauler’s SB 1383 obligations are whatever the regulation sets as a floor plus whatever its agreements add. Where the collected organics end up, and whether that processing capacity is reliable, is what turns compliance into a business question.

Key takeaways

A hauler collecting residential, commercial or industrial organic waste needs approval from each jurisdiction it serves, must identify the facilities it will use, and must transport organics to a facility, operation or property that recovers them.
Container colors are set statewide: green for organics, blue for recyclables, gray for the rest. Older off-color containers can stay in service until the end of their life or January 1, 2036, whichever comes first.
Contamination monitoring is a jurisdiction duty. A hauler does it when the jurisdiction designates it by contract, and the jurisdiction stays responsible.
A jurisdiction may not block lawful organics processing or export, but it may direct a hauler to a particular facility through a contract or franchise.
Haulers can help jurisdictions meet their procurement targets as direct service providers, which makes compost and renewable gas part of the hauler’s offer to a city.

How SB 1383 reaches a hauler

The legal text is CalRecycle’s final SB 1383 regulations, Title 14, Division 7, Chapter 12 of the California Code of Regulations. Three sections carry most of the hauler duties.

Jurisdiction approval. Under 14 CCR section 18988.1, a jurisdiction must require haulers serving generators in its boundaries to meet the chapter’s standards as a condition of approval. As part of approval, the hauler identifies the facilities it will take organic waste to, and it complies with the collection requirements in Article 3 that apply to it.

Hauler requirements. 14 CCR section 18988.2 requires the hauler to transport collected organic waste to a facility, operation, activity or property that recovers organic waste, to obtain the jurisdiction’s approval, and to keep a record of its approval documents.

Designation. Under 14 CCR section 18981.2, a jurisdiction may designate a public or private entity, including a hauler, to carry out its responsibilities through a contract or agreement. The jurisdiction remains ultimately responsible. This is the door through which route reviews, notices, education and data collection usually land on a hauler.

Two exclusions apply. The approval and transport sections do not apply to a hauler taking source-separated organics to a community composting site, or to a hauler lawfully transporting construction and demolition debris under the CALGreen provision.

Jurisdictions, generators, facilities and haulers are all subject to penalties for non-compliance, according to CalRecycle’s guidance for elected officials, which also tells jurisdictions to provide oversight of their hauler and processing contractors.

Collection systems and container colors

CalRecycle’s collection systems page allows three systems. The hauler’s routing, fleet and destination change with each.

System	What the customer separates	Where the hauler delivers	Notes
Three-container	Green: organics. Blue: recyclables. Gray: remainder	Green to an organics recovery facility, blue to recycling, gray as directed	Contamination monitoring required
Two-container	Blue and gray, or green and gray	Blue or green to recovery; the gray container goes to a high-diversion organic waste processing facility	Contamination monitoring required
One-container	Everything in a gray container	A high-diversion organic waste processing facility	Facility must show it can recover 75% of the organics in the mixed stream

Color rules apply to the outside of the container. Either the lid is the designated color, or the body is, with a lid in the same color, gray or black. New containers must carry the required colors and labels showing accepted and prohibited materials. Containers bought before January 1, 2022 that do not meet the color rules can stay in use until the end of their functional life or January 1, 2036, whichever comes first. As of October 2026, CalRecycle’s AB 2902 and AB 2346 guidance adds that jurisdictions using bins designed to keep bears out are not required to meet the lid color rule.

For fleet planning, the container system is the first question in any new agreement. A switch from one-container to three-container service changes truck counts, route density and the facilities you need contracts with.

Contamination monitoring and what a hauler may be asked to do

14 CCR section 18984.5 and CalRecycle’s contamination monitoring page give jurisdictions two ways to monitor three-container and two-container service:

Route reviews. Containers are randomly selected along a hauler route, and all routes are reviewed each year.
Waste evaluations. Samples taken at solid waste facilities at least twice a year, in two different seasons.

When contaminants are found on a route review, the generator must be notified. The notice explains the duty to separate materials, may include photos, and can be left on the container, gate or door, or sent by mail or electronically. The regulation also lets the jurisdiction dispose of a container’s contents when it observes prohibited contaminants. If a waste evaluation finds contaminants above 25 percent of the measured sample for any container type, all generators on the sampled routes must be notified, or a targeted route review must find the sources.

The regulation assigns all of this to the jurisdiction. Whether a driver can tag a cart, photograph it or tip a contaminated load to the gray stream depends on what the jurisdiction has designated in the hauler’s contract. Get those authorities in writing, with the record format the city needs, because the city will have to show those records to CalRecycle.

Where collected organics may go

The rules on destination

14 CCR section 18990.1 works in both directions. A jurisdiction may not enforce an ordinance, policy or permit condition that prohibits or unreasonably limits lawful organics processing, that stops a facility from accepting organic waste from outside the jurisdiction, that limits export to a facility that recovers it, or that requires a hauler to deliver organics to a facility that does not recover them. The same section also says a jurisdiction may arrange through a contract or franchise for a hauler to take organic waste to a particular facility, and may arrange with a facility to guarantee permitted capacity. Flow control through a franchise is allowed. A ban on lawful processing is not.

Standards at transfer and processing facilities

Many haulers own the next step, so the facility rules matter too. CalRecycle’s transfer and processing page says organic material sent from a transfer or processing facility to composting or digestion should be 80% clean (less than 20% incompatible material) by 2022 and 90% clean by 2024, with sampling, records and reporting of outgoing weights. Composters must measure the organic waste in residuals they send to disposal and report the percentage to CalRecycle every quarter, according to the organics recycling facilities page.

Using organic waste as alternative daily cover at a landfill counts as landfill disposal under SB 1383, per CalRecycle’s disposal FAQ. A hauler with a landfill cannot treat green material cover as recovery.

Our guide to food waste contamination and depackaging covers what happens to contaminated loads once they reach a processor.

Procurement: the hauler as a direct service provider

Each jurisdiction must procure recovered organic waste products every year, at 0.08 tons of organic waste per resident per year under 14 CCR section 18993.1. CalRecycle says the 2022 targets apply through December 31, 2026, after which they are recalculated for population, so as of October 2026 check the current figure for each jurisdiction you serve. CalRecycle’s procurement page says jurisdictions can meet the target by contracting with direct service providers, and names waste haulers among them. Its procurement targets page gives examples: a provider that uses or gives away compost and mulch on the jurisdiction’s behalf, and a hauler that fuels its collection fleet with renewable gas from a permitted California anaerobic digestion facility.

For a hauler with compost capacity or renewable gas trucks, that is a selling point in a franchise negotiation, but it carries paperwork: written agreements, records of what was procured on the city’s behalf, and no double counting between jurisdictions. Compost counts only if it was made at a permitted or authorized composting operation. See key California SB 1383 requirements for the full procurement rules.

How franchise agreements carry these duties

Every city writes its own agreement, so treat this as a list of what to look for rather than what the law requires:

[ ] Which container system, colors, labels and replacement schedule the hauler supplies
[ ] Whether the hauler is designated to run route reviews, leave notices or reject contaminated containers, and in what record format
[ ] The facilities the hauler must use, and any guaranteed capacity arrangement
[ ] Education materials the hauler must deliver to customers, and how often
[ ] Reports the hauler owes the city: tonnage by stream, contamination findings, notices issued, facility receipts
[ ] Any procurement role: compost delivered to city sites, mulch, renewable fuel
[ ] What happens when a facility the hauler named loses capacity or a permit

The last item is where most risk sits. A hauler that relies on one third-party composter for its organics stream is exposed if that composter fills up, loses an air permit or raises its gate rate. That is why many haulers are looking at owning processing; the guide on why haulers are adding organics processing covers that decision.

Where processing fits for a hauler

Processing capacity is the step that lets a hauler promise a city a destination for every ton. Food scraps make the processing harder: they are wet, dense, high in nitrogen and closely watched by air districts.

Sustainable Generation (SG) supplies covered aerated static pile systems that use the GORE® Cover with positive aeration controlled by oxygen and temperature feedback. SG’s profile of Mid Valley Disposal in Kerman describes a company with no previous composting experience that ran a pilot with an SG MOBILE® System, then built a full-scale SG BUNKER® System facility. The profile says the pilot tested mix ratios, emission control and the viability of entering the organics market, and that it revealed the need for water addition in a hot, arid climate. It is one route, not the only one: turned windrows still suit yard trimmings on large, remote sites. Compare the options in composting methods compared and the list of food waste composting systems for municipalities, which applies to haulers serving those programs.

FAQ

Do haulers have to register with CalRecycle under SB 1383?

The regulation’s approval duty runs through the jurisdiction, not CalRecycle. Under 14 CCR section 18988.1, each city or county must require haulers serving its generators to meet the chapter’s standards as a condition of approval, including naming the facilities they will use. The hauler then keeps a record of that approval under section 18988.2. Check each jurisdiction’s ordinance for its own permit or registration process.

Who pays for contamination monitoring?

The regulation makes monitoring the jurisdiction’s duty and does not set who pays. When a jurisdiction designates a hauler to do route reviews or send notices, the cost is a matter for the franchise or contract, usually built into rates. Before agreeing, check the sampling method, the records the city needs and how often it needs them, because those decide the labor involved.

Can a city require us to use its facility?

Yes, through a contract or franchise. 14 CCR section 18990.1 says the section does not prohibit a jurisdiction from arranging for a hauler to transport organic waste to a particular facility for processing or recovery. What a jurisdiction cannot do is require delivery to a facility that does not recover organic waste, or ban lawful processing.

Do the container color rules mean replacing every cart now?

No. Carts bought before January 1, 2022 that do not meet the color rules can stay in service until the end of their functional life or January 1, 2036, whichever comes first. New containers must carry the required colors and labels. Jurisdictions using bear-resistant bins are not required to meet the lid color requirement, according to CalRecycle’s AB 2902 guidance.

Does sending organics to a landfill for cover count?

No. CalRecycle’s SB 1383 FAQ says organic waste used as alternative daily cover or alternative intermediate cover at a landfill is landfill disposal. Uses that do count as a reduction in disposal include soil amendment for erosion control, revegetation or slope stabilization, as long as the material is not later landfilled.

Next step

If your franchise commitments depend on a composter you do not control, it is worth knowing what owning that step would take. Read how SG’s covered ASP technology works, then browse the waste company track for the guides on siting, revenue and city agreements.

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