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<br />8A <br />Page 7 <br /> <br />Background <br /> <br />All cities in California under current law are required to divert 50 percent of their solid waste from <br />their landfill. This mandate, over the past 19 years, has led to a major effort by local governments <br />to recycle waste, not dump it in a landfill. California has 54 percent diversion rate statewide for <br />reuse, recycling and composting. However, individually, some California cities have as low of a <br />diversion rate as 2-3 percent and others are well above 50 percent. <br /> <br />Diversion rates are calculated by taking a city's "base year generation of solid waste" minus the <br />estimated disposal tonnage going to landfill. This formula is problematic because it's both <br />complicated and has lead to a numbers game over the years. <br /> <br />A number of groups, including the California Integrated Waste Management Board (CIWMB) and <br />the League, hold the position that the current system for counting diversion rates is incomplete <br />because it is based on an estimate. Many cities report difficulty meeting the solid waste diversion <br />mandate even when they have implemented a large number of diversion programs. Some cities <br />struggle because of growth, others struggle with the mandate because their programs perform <br />below expectation. SB 1016 (Wiggins) attempts to address this issue by moving the focus from <br />numbers to programs (this is explained further in the bill section). <br /> <br />In addition to looking at numbers and programs in achieving lower levels of solid waste disposal <br />in California, SB 1020 (Padilla) attempts to provide tools to help local jurisdictions achieve higher <br />levels of waste diversion. Tools that have been suggested in the past include commercial <br />recycling mandates, extended producer responsibility mandates, diversion credit for emerging <br />technologies (conversion of solid waste to energy), additional credits for host jurisdictions, and <br />assisting local governments who are attempting to site new transfer stations, compost facilities <br />and recycling facilities. <br /> <br />Diversion Bills <br /> <br />SB 1016 (Wiggins) Diversion: compliance: per capita disposal rate <br /> <br />This bill changes the existing solid waste diversion management system to a disposal based <br />measurement system from the current emphasis on meeting the 50 percent solid waste diversion <br />requirement to emphasizing local programs that help meet the new goal of reduced per-capita <br />disposal of solid waste. <br /> <br />League position: Support <br />Status: Assembly Floor <br /> <br />SB 1020 (Padilla): Diversion (as proposed to be amended) <br /> <br />This bill, as proposed to be amended, increases the mandated statewide diversion rate from 50 <br />percent to 60 percent by 2012 and requires a target statewide aggregate goal of 75 percent <br />waste diversion by 2020. The bill also includes mandated commercial recycling on any business <br />in California that produces over four cubic yards of waste per week. SB 1020 would require any <br />city or county, or city and county within a county with a population of over 200,000, to adopt an <br />ordinance to enforce the commercial recycling mandate in the bill. <br /> <br />League position: None <br />Status: Assembly Appropriations Committee Suspense File <br /> <br />Solid Waste Tipping Fee Bills <br /> <br />There are two bills related to the statewide solid waste tipping fee. This tipping fee is set at $1.40 <br />per ton of solid waste and is remitted by local jurisdictions to the state's Integrated Waste <br />Management Fund. Most local governments charge an additional local tipping fee that funds local <br />programs. <br /> <br />7 <br />