Glendale, CA Trash & Recycling: Mandatory Organics Recycling (2026)

Section 8.44.080 is Glendale's core mandatory-organics rule, enacted under Ordinance 5961 in 2021 to implement the state's SB 1383 methane-reduction mandate. It applies to "all generators," meaning every residential and commercial address in the city, and requires each to source-separate waste into three streams at the point of generation: source-separated yard trimmings and organic waste, including food scraps such as fruit, vegetable, meat, poultry, seafood, bones, rice, beans, pasta, bread, cheese and eggshells (as defined in § 8.44.010), go in the green container; source-separated recyclable materials go in the blue container; and everything else, refuse, goes in the gray container. The city allows an exception only where it or a permitted hauler collects the streams together for delivery to a state-certified high-diversion organic-waste processing facility that can sort them mechanically after pickup.

The section backs the separation duty with an explicit mixing ban: no generator may combine recyclables, organics or refuse, or place one type in the container designated for another, and "prohibited container contaminants," non-recyclable material in the blue container, non-organic material in the green container, or recoverable material in the gray container, are barred from all three containers. Under § 8.44.080(C), residential generators must subscribe to the city's gray, blue and green container services for all the waste they generate, while commercial generators must subscribe through the designated franchised hauler; the alternative is self-hauling or on-site composting under terms set out elsewhere in the chapter. Section 8.44.080(D) puts the burden back on the generator if a load goes uncollected because it contained recyclables or organics mixed into refuse: that generator must re-sort the material, and letting it then accumulate past the § 8.44.030 time limits is treated as a separate code violation.