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

Section 9.02.160 of the Santee Municipal Code, adopted to implement the State's SB 1383 organic waste reduction mandate, requires every single-family organic waste generator to subscribe to the City's organic waste collection service for all the organic waste the household produces, unless that household instead qualifies as a self-hauler under Section 9.02.175. Having subscribed, the household must actually participate: source separated green container organic waste, defined to include food waste along with yard trimmings and other compostable material, goes in the green cart, source separated recyclable materials go in the blue cart, and gray container waste goes in the gray cart, with the chapter expressly barring a generator from placing gray-container material into the green or blue containers.

The same mandatory-separation duty extends to commercial businesses and multifamily properties of five or more units under the parallel Section 9.02.165, which additionally requires those generators to supply properly labeled indoor and outdoor collection containers for employees, tenants, and customers. A resident is not left without options for reducing what goes to landfill: the chapter allows generators to prevent or reduce organic waste at the source, manage it on-site through composting, or use a community composting site instead of, or alongside, the City's collection subscription.