California bill could ease waste burning in Stanislaus County
Some cities in California continue to divert their waste to burn in Stanislaus County, causing environmental and public health concerns, but newly introduced legislation aims to ease that practice.
Covanta Stanislaus incinerator in Stanislaus County and the Southeast Resource Recovery Facility (SERRF) in Long Beach are the last two standing waste-to-energy plants in California. Cities can receive a credit for diverting up to 10% of their waste to be burned in one of these facilities instead of piling their waste in a landfill.
Assembly Bill 1857, introduced on Feb. 8 by Assemblywoman Cristina Garcia, D-Bell Gardens, would eliminate diversion credits, make investments toward zero-waste strategies and ensure that municipalities are prioritizing those strategies.
It’s difficult to ignore the scientific data that show the harmful impact the waste incinerators have on front-line communities, Garcia said in a statement. The facilities, she said, are a reminder that environmental racism can be normalized as a policy-neutral solution, but there’s always more to the story.
“Our state needs to turn away from municipal incineration as a viable option,” she said. “California needs to support zero-waste strategies with funding and policy changes to better leverage our investments going forward.”
Assembly members Heath Flora of district 12 and Adam Gray of district 21 did not return calls for comment.
To support zero-waste practices, the Integrated Waste Management Act in 1989 mandated that 50% of waste be diverted from landfills. Lobbyists, however, pushed to include incinerators in the program, allowing municipalities to receive diversion credits for sending their waste to be burned.
The incinerators are in predominantly low-income and people-of-color regions, like the Covanta location in Stanislaus County.
AB 1857 seeks to correct this injustice and invest in zero-waste, said Nicole Kurian, policy analyst at Californians Against Waste. “It’s time to stop sending our trash to be burned in already overburdened communities and calling it recycling,” she said.
Diversion credits would be eliminated under AB 1857. The bill would require CalRecycle to ensure that municipalities are prioritizing zero-waste strategies before constructing new incinerators.
Investments in zero-waste strategies also would be made under this bill, particularly in communities most impacted by the incinerators. Cities and counties that before Jan. 1, 1990, disposed of 75% or more of their solid waste by transformation would be required to reduce their diversions.
Transformation is the incineration of waste, according to CalRecycle.
Under the act, jurisdictions would be required to divert 50% of solid waste through source reduction, recycling and composting activities, with no more than 10% of that to be through transformation if specified conditions are met.
AB 1857 would enact the Zero Waste Transition Act of 2022, which would require the state Department of Resources Recycling and Recovery, upon appropriation by the Legislature, to support communities in transitioning from reliance on transformation facilities to building infrastructure to meet the state’s recycling goals and the state’s 2025 organic waste reduction target. AB 1857 would require city, county or regional agencies to develop a source of reduction and recycling element of an integrated waste management plan.
Moreover, because the act would require local agencies to revise source reduction and recycling elements of their waste plans, the bill would impose a state-mandated local program. The department would need to develop a five-year investment strategy to drive local zero waste strategies for communities seeking to reduce reliance on transformation on or before Jan. 1, 2024.
Thomas Helme, co-founder of Valley Improvement Projects, said although Modesto was once the first in the country to have curbside recycling in the early 1970s, it backpedaled when the program was eliminated. However, Garcia’s bill brings hope that better is to come in terms of waste management.
“We at VIP are hopeful the changes in AB 1857 will spare Stanislaus County and other overburdened communities from the harms caused by current law,” he said.
