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

California SB 1383 generally requires jurisdictions to provide organic-waste (food scraps and yard waste) collection and to meet recycled-content procurement targets, but it allows waivers for rural, low-population jurisdictions. San Benito County is one of 19 California counties with fewer than 70,000 residents that qualifies for this rural exemption, which AB 2902 extended. As a result, the County is exempt from SB 1383's organic-waste collection and procurement requirements. Critically, the exemption does not lift everything: rural-exempt jurisdictions must still implement SB 1383's edible food recovery, recycled-paper procurement, and model water-efficient landscaping requirements. San Benito County has adopted an Edible Food Recovery Ordinance, in effect, requiring Tier 1 and Tier 2 commercial edible-food generators to arrange donation of surplus edible food to food recovery organizations. Even though organics collection is not mandated, the County chose to offer organics service: Recology provides residential customers a 96-gallon organics cart for food waste, food-soiled paper and yard waste. So in practice many residents have organics collection available despite the waiver. Businesses should confirm their edible-food-recovery tier with the County. These obligations reflect a mix of county ordinance (edible food recovery, franchise organics service) and state law (the SB 1383 framework and its rural exemption).