Tustin, CA Landscaping Rules: Composting (2026)

Tustin's composting rules flow from California Senate Bill 1383, the statewide organic-waste-reduction law that targets a 75% cut in landfilled organics from 2014 levels by 2025. The City contracts exclusively with CR&R Environmental Services for residential collection and launched its organics program July 1, 2021. Single-family homes use a three-cart system: a green cart for yard trimmings and food waste, a blue cart for recyclables, and a black cart for trash. Accepted green-cart organics include food scraps (fruit, vegetables, meat, bones, bread, pasta, coffee filters), food-soiled paper such as napkins and paper towels, and yard trimmings including grass clippings, leaves, flowers, hedge clippings, tree branches and trunks. Every residential property received a kitchen food-scrap pail to collect scraps for the green cart. CR&R hauls collected organics to its composting facility to be turned into soil amendment. Residents may still backyard-compost, which is encouraged as a self-reduction method under SB 1383, but the green cart remains the default compliance path and contamination is subject to audits and random container inspections. Separately, Tustin's Water Efficient Landscape Ordinance Guidelines require compost on regulated new landscape installations 'at a rate of a minimum of four cubic yards per 1,000 square feet of permeable area... to a depth of six inches,' plus a minimum three-inch mulch layer on exposed planting soil.