The green bin stopped being a yard-waste bin in Los Angeles. It is an organics bin now, it takes dinner as well as grass, and there are four ordinary garden materials it still will not touch.
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In the City of Los Angeles the green bin now takes food scraps and food-soiled paper alongside yard trimmings, because SB 1383 requires it. Palm fronds, yucca, cactus, dirt and stumps are excluded from it. LA Sanitation collects excess brush free once a year, in bundles under four feet and 30 pounds.
Most Angelenos learned the green bin as the bin for grass and hedge clippings. That is no longer what it is. Under SB 1383 every California city must collect organic waste from every household, and in the City of Los Angeles that means LA Sanitation expects peels, bones and greasy pizza boxes in the same container as the leaves. The banned list grew at the same time, and it is full of things LA actually grows.
This page is about where the free system ends. For a normal week of gardening the green bin is free, correct and legally required. The problem is that Los Angeles is a city of palms on hillsides in a fire zone, and the four things a hillside produces — fronds, yucca, root balls and a truckload of cleared brush every May — are the four things no curbside organics program in the county will take.
SB 1383 is not a recycling rule. It is a climate rule aimed at methane, and the green bin is only the tool. CalRecycle's position is that organic waste rotting in landfills emits 20% of California's methane, a pollutant it describes as heating 84 times more than carbon dioxide, and that organics are about half of everything Californians bury.
The obligation falls mostly on cities, which must collect organic waste automatically rather than waiting for anyone to sign up. What lands on the household is short: separate the organics and do not contaminate the bin.
| The statute | SB 1383 (Lara, 2016), the Short-Lived Climate Pollutant Reduction Strategy |
|---|---|
| 2025 targets | 75% less organic waste sent to landfills, and 20% of unsold, still-edible food sent to food recovery organizations |
| What every city must do | Collect organic waste from everyone automatically, then run food recovery, outreach, compost procurement and enforcement |
| City of Los Angeles | LASAN states that all City residents are required to put food waste and green waste in the green bin weekly |
| Five units or more | Organics runs through recycLA, the city's franchise system, rather than curbside LASAN service |
Sources: CalRecycle, SB 1383, CalRecycle, Resources for Jurisdictions and LASAN recycLA organics.
Two things on the list surprise people. Meat, bones, fish and dairy are wanted, which is the opposite of what backyard composting teaches. And anything sold as compostable plastic is banned: LASAN says items certified to ASTM D6400 or BPI often do not break down fast enough in the process Los Angeles uses.
What LASAN does not publish is a branch size limit for the green bin: no diameter, no length. What it does publish is the limit on its free once-a-year brush pickup, and that is the number to work to when a hedge comes out.
| Food waste | Peels, stems, bones, meat, fish, beans, leftovers, dairy, eggshells, coffee grounds, rice and stale bread |
|---|---|
| Food-soiled paper | Coffee filters, napkins, paper towels and pizza boxes |
| Yard trimmings | Flowers, grass clippings, tree and bush trimmings, clean untreated wood |
| Keep out | Plastic bags and pet waste, which LASAN sends to the black bin |
| Compostable plastics | Excluded, including ASTM D6400 and BPI certified items. LASAN directs them to the black bin |
| How to load it | Loose from a kitchen pail, with no bags of any kind |
| Free brush pickup | Once a year per LASAN-serviced household. No bundle over 4 feet long or 30 pounds, booked on MyLA311 or 1-800-773-2489 |
Source: LASAN, Weekly Curbside Green Bin Collection and LASAN, Annual Brush Pickup, read September 11, 2026.
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A palm frond is not wood and not a leaf. It is a mat of long fiber, and a green waste grinder is full of rotating shafts. Fibrous material wraps those shafts instead of shattering, which is why composters refuse it and why the refusal travels back up the chain to your bin. The same logic catches yucca, cactus, agave, succulents and ice plant.
LASAN's residential page does not name palm, yucca or cactus either way. But the city's own facility at Lopez Canyon publishes a flat refusal of palm and yucca, and that is where the green bin goes.
| City of LA, Lopez Canyon | The city's own green waste facility takes branches, logs, stumps, roots, brush and untreated wood, and refuses palm of any type, yucca, tumbleweeds, concrete, dirt, rocks and treated wood |
|---|---|
| Long Beach | “Palm fronds, cacti, and succulents SHOULD NOT BE DISPOSED OF IN GREEN CARTS.” Not accepted at composting facilities; the city asks for a special collection. Logs and stumps excluded too |
| Burbank | Palm fronds are on the green cart prohibited list with dirt, pet waste, fabric, street litter and compostable plastics |
| Torrance | Palm fronds and palm branches are prohibited in the organics bin and listed for the black trash bin, as are large ice plant clusters. Branches accepted under 4 inches in diameter and 4 feet long |
| LA County Sanitation Districts | Contamination includes palm logs and trunks, or loads in which the majority of greenwaste are palm fronds. A contaminated load is charged the hard-to-handle rate |
Sources: LASAN, Commercial Green Waste Disposal, Long Beach, Burbank, Torrance and LACSD.
Nothing about a trunk fits the curbside model. It does not go in a cart, it is not four feet and 30 pounds, and Long Beach puts logs and stumps on its prohibited list. Once it is hauled, pricing flips from volume to weight.
A bin is sold by the cubic yard. A green waste gate is sold by the ton, on a one-ton minimum whether the load weighs a ton or not. A root ball also arrives full of soil, and soil is heavy, is not green waste, and counts as contamination. That is why one stump can cost more to move than a pickup bed of clippings four times its size.
| Sunshine Canyon Landfill, Sylmar | Clean greenwaste $125 per ton, municipal solid waste $120 per ton, as of July 1, 2024, on a one-ton minimum plus a $19.71 per load environmental fee |
|---|---|
| Calabasas Landfill, Agoura | LA County Sanitation Districts: uncontaminated green waste $78.13 per ton, municipal solid waste $83.13, hard-to-handle $98.13, effective July 15, 2026, on a one-ton minimum charge |
| Scholl Canyon and Puente Hills | LACSD: uncontaminated green waste $118.93 per ton at Scholl Canyon in Glendale, $107.33 at the Puente Hills MRF |
| Lopez Canyon, Sylmar | LASAN charges $48 per ton to landscapers and tree trimmers working in the City. Stumps and roots yes; palm, yucca and dirt no |
| What that means | Every rate here is per ton. A bin measures volume; the gate measures weight, and the scale sets the bill |
Sources: Sunshine Canyon Landfill, LACSD Tipping Fees and LASAN, read September 11, 2026.
Above a canyon, the biggest green waste event of the year is not a storm. It is the inspection. Both fire departments run an annual defensible space program with a hard date on it, and both end their requirement list the same way: the cut vegetation has to be removed in a legal manner. LA County Fire's 2026 list runs to 130,812 parcels.
The LAFD does let you keep the material if you chip it, spread no deeper than three inches within 30 feet of structures and six inches beyond.
LA County Fire mails its Annual Defensible Space Clearance Notice in the third week of February. The LAFD mails its owner notification in March.
For 2026 the City compliance date is May 1 and initial inspections run through June 30. County inspections start around April 1 in desert communities, May 1 inland and June 1 on the coast. The list is automatic.
A failed City inspection carries a $31.00 fee for 2026 and 20 days to correct. The County allows at least 30 days and bills a $151 inspection fee on the 2027 property tax bill.
A second City failure adds the LAFD's $758.00 non-compliance fee, then a $1,740.00 administrative cost fee plus the contractor's lowest bid. The County equivalent is a $500 administrative fine and a $1,647 abatement enforcement fee, and unpaid City invoices land on the property tax bill.
| City of LA, who it covers | Property owners in the Very High Fire Hazard Severity Zone, under L.A.M.C. 57.1.603.5 |
|---|---|
| City of LA, how far out | Year-round compliance within 200 feet of any structure and 10 feet of any combustible fence or roadway |
| Grass and native brush | Cut to 3 inches, except individual native shrubs spaced at least 18 feet apart and trimmed up to a third of their height |
| Trees | Over 18 feet: no foliage within 6 feet of the ground. Under 18 feet: lower branches to a third of their height. Dead material out |
| The disposal clause | All cut vegetation and debris shall be removed in a legal manner |
| LA County version | Combustible species out within 30 feet of a structure, 50 in extra hazard areas, then 70 feet thinned for 100 feet total, extendable to 200. Cured annual grasses no higher than 3 inches |
Sources: LAFD Brush Clearance Requirements, LAFD 2026 Owner Notification, LA County Fire 2026 Program Details and 2026 Clearance Notice.
For an ordinary week there is nothing to think about. Grass, leaves, hedge clippings, peels and a greasy pizza box go in the green bin weekly, already paid for. City residents have three more free routes behind it: the once-a-year brush collection, nine self-serve yards giving away mulch and TOPGRO compost, and LASAN's own suggestion to carry a kitchen pail to a backyard bin or an LA Compost drop-off.
Four things break that system, and they are the only four where paying anyone makes sense. A tree: a trunk, stump or root ball is not a curbside item anywhere in the county, and once it moves it is billed by the ton with soil counted as contamination. A hillside clearance: a parcel cut to the LAFD standard produces a pile measured in truckloads, on an inspector's deadline. A re-landscape: once sod, dirt, rock or concrete enters the pile it becomes construction debris and goes to a different facility. A storm: fronds and limbs come down at once, and the bin is already full of last week's grass.
If your problem is on that list, our yard waste removal crews load by hand off slopes and side yards across the areas we cover, priced as set out on the pricing page. If it is not, the green bin is free and it is the right answer.
Every rule, fee, limit and deadline on this page is from the body that sets it. Checked on the date above; if a city changes its program we change the page.
Same crew, one visit, one number agreed before anything is lifted.
Brush, palm fronds, sod, soil and storm debris, priced by weight.
Drywall, lumber, tile and concrete, hauled to a certified C&D processor.
Sheds, playhouses and patio covers dismantled in sequence, slab optional.
Booked and cleared the same day, most days, across LA County.
The rest of the LA disposal manual.
The LASAN blue-bin list, the things that look recyclable and are not, and why one greasy box does less damage than people think.
A dumpster on an LA street needs a permit and a hauler permit behind it. Which one is right depends on four things, not on price alone.
The state and city penalties, why liability follows the waste back to whoever produced it, and how to get a pile cleared off your street.
The follow-up questions people ask after this one.
Yes, and in the City of Los Angeles you are required to. LA Sanitation states that all City residents must participate by placing food waste and green waste in the green bin every week. That covers peels, bones, meat, fish, dairy, eggshells and coffee grounds, plus napkins and greasy pizza boxes.
Not in most of the region. Burbank and Torrance both list palm fronds as prohibited in the green cart, and Torrance directs them to the black trash bin. Long Beach says fronds, cacti and succulents should not go in green carts because composting facilities will not take them, and the City of Los Angeles refuses palm of any type at Lopez Canyon.
No. LA Sanitation asks for food scraps loose and says items labeled compostable or biodegradable often do not break down fast enough in the process Los Angeles uses, even when certified to ASTM D6400 or BPI. The fragments survive into finished compost, so the city sends them to the black bin.
No. Burbank and Torrance both list dirt on the green cart prohibited list, Torrance adds rocks and construction debris, and the LA County Sanitation Districts count dirt as contamination in a greenwaste load. The City of Los Angeles refuses dirt and rocks at Lopez Canyon.
That depends on the gate and the weight, because green waste is sold by the ton. Sunshine Canyon Landfill publishes $125 a ton for clean greenwaste with a one-ton minimum, and the LA County Sanitation Districts publish $78.13 a ton at Calabasas Landfill. Soil on a root ball adds weight and counts as contamination.
In the City of Los Angeles the LAFD set the 2026 compliance date at May 1 and runs initial inspections from May 1 through June 30. LA County Fire mails its annual notice in late February and begins inspections around April 1 in desert communities, May 1 inland and June 1 on the coast.
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