Community City of La Habra Est. 1925 Administration*

The majority of Orange County jurisdictions have not yet required their haulers to distribute residential containers that meet the CalRecycle standardized colors, leaving legacy and often incorrect or illegible labeling and embossing in place. Response and Explanation: Based on the information and documentation provided in the Study, the City of La Habra partially disagrees with the finding of the Grand Jury. The City is not fully aware of the actions made by other agencies; however, with regards to "requiring" haulers to distribute residential containers that meet standardized color requirements, the City is aware that many agencies have already updated their City ordinances which do require the hauler to meet CalRecycle's standardized color and labeling requirements. Funding and Enforcement

While a jurisdiction may not delegate its overall responsibility for compliance with State requirements to a hauler, some jurisdictions have designated the task of imposing and collecting fines from residents to the hauler in accordance with State law. However, not all jurisdictions are clear on who ultimately receives and retains the collected fines. Response and Explanation: Based on the information and documentation provided in the Study, the City of La Habra wholly disagrees with the finding of the Grand Jury. The finding is not clear on what is a fee and what is a fine. The finding also implies that agencies are either using the hauler to collect fines or are not. In La Habra's case, we allow the hauler to assess a contamination fee to pay for the costs of the extra processing that is required when managing high levels of contamination. The City also has its own fine procedure in place. To date, neither the City or the hauler has had to issue any contamination fees or fines. Of the few cases that were potentially close to sustaining a fee or a fine, the issues were resolved before any fees or fines were necessary to be issued. Honorable Maria Hernandez August 20, 2024

All jurisdictions will eventually start collecting fines from residents for non-compliance, but some have not yet determined whether the revenues will go into a waste and recycling enterprise fund or into the jurisdiction's general fund. Response and Explanation: Based on the information and documentation provided in the Study, the City of La Habra agrees with the finding of the Grand Jury. The City of La Habra is currently not aware of what other agencies are doing with collected fine revenues; however, the City of La Habra will be directing any fine revenues back into the City's Refuse Enterprise Fund. Education and Outreach

In most jurisdictions, education and outreach is a joint effort between jurisdiction, hauler, and sometimes consultants, with the jurisdiction reviewing the materials before publication. The methods of dissemination vary by jurisdiction and hauler but frequently rely on a resident actively seeking the information, which requires the resident to have some awareness of the new mandates in the first place. Most efforts primarily revolve around intermittent hard-copy paper mailings. Response and Explanation: Based on the information and documentation provided in the Study, the City of La Habra partially disagrees with the finding of the Grand Jury. The City of La Habra agrees with the first and third sentences of this finding, but not the second sentence. The City of La Habra and its current waste hauler, CR&R, provide a variety of materials to residents and businesses and have used many different types of outreach methods including, but not limited, to mass mailings, articles in local magazines, electronic articles and information through social media, in person outreach at civic events, and door to door outreach. The City's primary method of outreach has been to provide letters and other hard copy information as it allows outreach to a large number of residents and businesses in the City in a comprehensive manner. La Habra does not only rely on the residents actively seeking out information, but rather, the City is proactive in send information out to residents. The City also, through its waste hauler, performs route audits and performance reviews once per year. This process includes staff at the waste hauler lifting refuse can lids to check if residents are recycling properly and, if not, providing information to the City so that staff can notify the resident of the regulations. Furthermore, the City conducts many activities throughout the year where staff actively seeks out residents and businesses to provide information. The City is not entirely aware of what all other Orange County cities are doing regarding outreach in their communities, but staff is aware that there are several cities in the county that currently use similar outreach methods as are used in La Habra.

Most jurisdictions currently have no way to accurately determine the effectiveness of their respective education and outreach efforts other than the eventual inspections or audits that will take place. Response and Explanation: Based on the information and documentation provided in the Study, the City of La Habra partially disagrees with the finding of the Grand Jury. Generally, yes, inspections and audits are one of the best ways to determine effectiveness, but it is not the only way. If we start to see reductions in landfill disposal, that is another way. Tracking contamination levels at the organic recycling facilities is another way. There are several other methods that can be used to determine effectiveness. Procurement of Recovered Organic Waste Products

There is some concern that there are not enough composting facilities in Orange County to process all organic waste, forcing some jurisdictions/haulers to transport it long distances for processing. Response and Explanation: Based on the information and documentation provided in the Study, the City of La Habra agrees with the finding of the Grand Jury. In recent years Orange County has established some higher capacity composting facilities at certain County landfills, but it doesn't appear that there are enough facilities yet Honorable Maria Hernandez August 20, 2024 in the county to handle all recycled organic waste. This does result in some jurisdictions, including La Habra, having to transport organic waste long distances.

There is currently no infrastructure in the county that is a State-approved source of Renewable Natural Gas (RNG) and energy from organic waste. Jurisdictions that use vehicles running on RNG procured from non- approved sources cannot count that RNG towards fulfillment of their procurement requirement. Response and Explanation: Based on the information and documentation provided in the Study, the City of La Habra agrees with the finding of the Grand Jury. The City of La Habra does take RNG credit for its hauler's trash trucks since they operate using RNG from a recycling facility, but it is located in Riverside County. The City is not aware of RNG infrastructure operating in Orange County at this time.

The formula used by the State to calculate a jurisdiction's procurement target does not account for a jurisdiction's population density or geographic size (square miles). As such, meeting the annual procurement target presents a significant challenge for most jurisdictions. Response and Explanation: Based on the information and documentation provided in the Study, the City of La Habra fully agrees with the finding of the Grand Jury. The City of La Habra's population of 61,028, when compared to its geographic size of 7.4 square miles, creates a population density of approximately 8,247 residents per square mile. It would be helpful if CalRecycle could calculate a more accurate and reasonable target amount by accounting for these population density factors in cities such as La Habra.

Many Orange County jurisdictions were unable to meet the requirement in SB 1383 to reduce organic waste sent to landfills by the 2020 deadline. It is unlikely the required seventy-five percent reduction will be achieved by the 2025 deadline. Response and Explanation: Based on the information and documentation provided in the Study, the City of La Habra agrees with the finding of the Grand Jury.

The current procurement requirements mandated by SB 1383 are unrealistic and likely unachievable by most jurisdictions. Response and Explanation: Based on the information and documentation provided in the Study, the City of La Habra wholly agrees with the finding of the Grand Jury. Per CalRecycle's Procurement Target calculator, La Habra's procurement target in 2023 is 4,882.2 tons of organic waste. La Habra could meet its procurement, requirement by purchasing 7,079.2 cubic yards (CY) of compost, which is equivalent to approximately 177 truckloads of compost material. While the City does use some compost material for landscaping throughout City owned parks and facilities, it does not have the capacity to utilize this much compost in any given year. CalRecycle encourages jurisdictions to acquire and donate compost to organization that could utilize that type of product, such as a farm; however, in a sub-urban community such as La Habra, there are no such large scale users capable of taking on that much compost per year. It should be noted that that the City's waste hauler, CR&R, does donate compost to residents at two advertised annual events in La Habra, but the amount that typically gets distributed equals about 123 tons of organic waste, or only 2.5% of the City's procurement target. The City would need to hold 38 more events each year in order to meet its procurement target. Honorable Maria Hernandez August 20, 2024