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Pressure to shore up a growing deficit and comply with state law has prompted the Long Beach City Council to consider raising rates for waste disposal citywide, leaving residents to expect a hefty bump in their trash bill starting later this year.
New rates were proposed in a cost-of-service study published Friday.
With the exception of recycling — which is charged at a flat fee — rates depend on container size and how often they’re collected. Factoring in the rising cost of recycling, an average home’s 95-gallon container is charged $42.66 per month, while a 65-gallon bin is charged $36.03 per month. A 35-gallon bin is the cheapest available for residential customers, averaging $21.02 a month.
Under the proposed new rates, each category would climb three times through 2026.
For businesses and commercial sites, rates specifically for trash collection would drop, but bills overall will trend higher when you account for rising costs in organic waste collection and recycling.
If approved, this would be the second time an increase has been OK’d since October 2023.
The new monthly rates, on average, would make Long Beach comparable in cost to Santa Monica, about $20 more expensive than Sacramento and Pasadena but $15 to $34 cheaper than Burbank and Santa Barbara.
But the effort is largely out of the city’s control. The increases are tied to an effort by cities across California to implement some form of collection system that complies with SB 1383, a 2020 state law with a goal of throwing 75% less organic waste into landfills by 2025. Cities that do not comply can face up to $10,000 a day in state-imposed fines.
Organic waste makes up nearly half of the waste — about 78 million tons — sent to state landfills, which account for a fifth of California’s methane emissions, according to CalRecycle.
About 91% of jurisdictions statewide have begun some form of collection program since the law went into effect in January 2022, putting pressure on areas that have yet to start.
Long Beach began its first iteration of a phased rollout last October, delivering new composting trash bins to about 8,000 homes and apartments in 13 areas around the city.
The new system is unfunded, and not cheap. It requires new trucks, staff and other specialized equipment that overshadows the expected 2% dip in fuel costs through 2026. Compost materials are trucked from transfer stations to possible sites in far-flung California cities like Victorville, Vernalis and Lamont.
The city’s Public Works Department, which declined to make someone available for an interview, explained in a written statement that processing organic waste — about $40 per ton — is “significantly more expensive” than sending it to a landfill — “nearly double the cost.”
The city collects about 200,000 tons of solid waste annually.
The new program, in total, is expected to cost $24.6 million in the 2025 fiscal year — a $5.7 million increase from this year — and $25.2 million in 2026.
That leaves an expected shortfall of $11.5 million this fiscal year, though other estimates provided in the study said shortfalls could reach $15.6 million in 2025 and $19.1 million in 2026.
Without the rate hike, the city’s reserve balance, meant to cover three months of expenses, would dry up by the end of 2025, according to the study.
Residents who do not yet have organic waste carts will not see the full rate increase until service starts at their homes. (So far only about 7% of Long Beach’s residential accounts have organic waste bins.)
“If the proposed rates are implemented, residential organics rates would go into effect August 1, 2025,” said city spokesperson Jocelin Padilla-Razo. “Only those residents who have organics service at that time will be charged for service. Residents who do not have organics collection service by 8/1/25 will not be billed for that service until they receive it.”
The city hopes to have the “majority” of the estimated 112,000 homes in service by the end of this year.
To view their progress, visit the online map here.
State law allows residents to contest the new rates if they collect signatures from a “50% plus one” majority of customers.
That would mean 57,925 signatures would be required. Residents may protest the new rates here. No date has been set yet for the City council to vote on the rates. The soonest they could act is in March.