Amador County, CA Trash & Recycling: Mandatory Organics Recycling (2026)

SB 1383 is California's short-lived climate pollutant law requiring large statewide reductions in landfilled organic waste and increased edible-food recovery. The regulations include a rural-jurisdiction exemption, and Amador County has invoked it. Per the County's organic-waste provisions (Amador County Code Chapter 7.21, Organic Waste Disposal Reduction) and the County's SB 1383 information, Amador County meets the definition of 'rural jurisdiction' in Public Resources Code section 42649.8 and applied for the rural exemption under section 18984.12(c) of Title 14 of the California Code of Regulations. As a result, the County is not subject to the Organic Waste Collection Services requirements (Article 3, §18984.1 et seq.), the Organic Waste Capacity Planning requirements (Article 11, §18992.1), or the Procurement of Recovered Organic Waste Products requirements (Article 12, §§18993.1 and 18993.2) through December 31, 2026. Amador is among the roughly 19 California counties with fewer than 70,000 residents that qualify for this rural exemption. What still applies, even with the exemption, is SB 1383's edible food recovery program (recovering surplus edible food from commercial generators) plus universal duties such as recycled-content paper procurement and model water-efficient landscaping requirements. So there is no mandatory residential green-organics cart mandate countywide during the exemption period — residents may still voluntarily compost or use any available yard-waste service through ACES Waste — but commercial edible-food generators have recovery obligations, and the exemption is time-limited and subject to renewal/legislative changes (e.g., AB 2902).