California Democrats must really love New York. That is the city with a massive rat problem. But, California likes to do things bigger and worse. So, now thanks to the silly green recycling, we have a rat, roach, flies and maggot problem.
“According to local T.V. station KFMB:
SAN DIEGO — Months after the City of San Diego implemented its new organic waste recycling program, some San Diegans say they’re now dealing with unintended consequences.
People say they’re seeing an explosion of gnats, flies, maggots and other bugs and insects inside their bins.
“Lots of flies doesn’t smell too good,” said one San Diegan.
“As soon as I open it up there’s like 4 thousand fruit flies that came up into my face. I think it’s perfect for like yard waste, like leaves, tree trimmings, and things like that, but I don’t know if it’s a good solution for compost especially with the hot weather coming up it’s going to get worse,” said San Diegan, Nick Adams.
Some people said they’re concerned the waste could attract rodents and other animals.
Even though government is about corruption and stupidity, the people are not. Most are refusing to use the bins for food garbage—knowing the health hazard they are. The real goal is to payoff the bin makers, create health hazards that will take tax dollars to solve—and add costs to living in San Diego—already very expensive. Every body loses except for the bin makers, the politicians and the virtue shamers.
Ahh, summertime in SoCal, and with green recycling, here come the rats, roaches, flies and maggots
By Monica Showalter, American Thinker, 6/24/23 https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2023/06/summertime_in_socal_and_with_green_recycling_here_come_the_rats_roaches_flies_and_maggots.html
Green recycling isn’t quite saving the earth the way they said it would.
So here in San Diego, where we are under a state mandate to recycle our green garbage — food scraps, food-soiled paper, and yard clippings — fresh new environmental problems are abounding.
According to local T.V. station KFMB:
SAN DIEGO — Months after the City of San Diego implemented its new organic waste recycling program, some San Diegans say they’re now dealing with unintended consequences.
People say they’re seeing an explosion of gnats, flies, maggots and other bugs and insects inside their bins.
“Lots of flies doesn’t smell too good,” said one San Diegan.
“As soon as I open it up there’s like 4 thousand fruit flies that came up into my face. I think it’s perfect for like yard waste, like leaves, tree trimmings, and things like that, but I don’t know if it’s a good solution for compost especially with the hot weather coming up it’s going to get worse,” said San Diegan, Nick Adams.
Some people said they’re concerned the waste could attract rodents and other animals.
“We understand it’s something that people have to get used to and put into practice,” said Director of Environmental Services Department, Renee Robertson.
Did I hear that right? Did she just say we need to get used to having rats and roaches around the old middle-America ranch house now going for a million dollars on the market, with property taxes indexed to it?
I think that’s what she’s saying, because people are reporting problems because they use the government system.
That green recycling system consists of a big green garbage can for the organic recycling, and a little bucket in state-issued taupe gray with an 1970s avocado-green hinging lid for use indoors to deposit kitchen scraps and used paper towels, which we can set on a counter or on the floor or maybe in a bottom trash cabinet. It’s this thing here:
Each household also got a green garbage bin like this below, (and with it, the little zip-tied scrap bucket attached for use indoors).
The system has been in place since January, but San Diego has been slower than other blue cities to implement it than other blue cities. We got our green trash set-up kit around late January.
It was part of a big intrusive state mandate passed in 2016 for green recycling to reduce carbon emissions. According to local Pacific Beach Monthly:
Known as SB 1383, the organics recycling law was enacted in 2016 to reduce greenhouse gas methane emissions from rotting food and other organic material sent to landfills. The waste is to be diverted to facilities that create compost and mulch or natural gas from the trash.
When I got it, I was amazed at how government-intrusive the city-issued bin was, how micromanage-y, but we have a pretty intrusive government here in San Diego — one in which public health officials have instructed me personally, on the phone to wear masks indoors because of family members having COVID, ignoring the fact that I took ivermectin and never caught it and it had been in the household awhile; where cops have patrolled the neighborhood looking for people walking outdoors without masks; and where city officials once banged on my door to ask if I knew of any illegal day care centers in the neighborhood, which I had no idea about. They’re busy, they’re watching, and there are a lot of them.
As for the system itself, it’s not that bad — for me. The scrap bin is actually well designed, and easier to use than the recycled plastic bags that I had been using for organic kitchen scraps (I sure as heck wouldn’t put organic scraps in trash, not organic stuff, where it could sit for days). One flick of the side of my wrist and I can get rid of all the carrot peels and avocado skins and fish bones and whatever else is being cooked up in the kitchen and drop the lid back down without even touching it with my fingers. At the end of the day, the thing is always full and I deposit the scraps into the giant garbage bin outside at the side of the house. Sometimes it fills up earlier and I make multiple trips to the garbage can. Yes, I open the thing with dread — a ton of gnats can fly up and I sometimes see snails and slugs sliming around on the inside. But we live in a relatively cool microclimate and because I also deposit into it so many lawn clippings and pulled weeds (gotta pull weeds or the rattlesnakes will come), that tends to cover up the food scraps and I see fewer flies and such.
It works fine for me and I like the extra space for dumping weeds and getting rid of kitchen scraps. But it would have been better to have this as a choice than a diktat.
And it doesn’t work for everyone, and now that summer is coming up, with its blazing merciless dry heat, that may create more problems and maybe it will get tougher for even me, too. I haven’t seen the big heat yet….
For one thing, some people don’t have enough space. Our poor neighbors, who are handicapped, have desperately put theirs onto our property (which we aren’t going to complain about, not with these people) because they really don’t have space for it — look at the lack of space on the side of their house where their kitchen door is — they have no place to put this, and going around to the other side is impractical because they are handicapped:
Sigh.
For another, many residents are resisting the intrusive micromanaging diktat.
In my neighborhood, I found five homes walking around that aren’t using that scrap bin — they’ve left it on its zip ties from its original delivery, or sometimes just cut it off from its zip ties and thrown it at the side of their yards. Here’s one example here.
I asked my neighbor if I could take a picture of it this morning to show that people aren’t embracing this government-intrusive idea — and he said sure, adding: “It’s stupid. They just want to charge us more.”
That, and not wanting to invite roaches as the hot summer approaches, does make quite a bit of sense.
For others, such as those in hotter microclimates, it makes even more sense.
What was the city’s pro-offered solution to the sheer grossness of the kitchen bins? KFMB reported:
“The number one thing that all of us can do is use a covered container to store our food scraps and keep inside either under the sink or fridge until the day before collection. And then, only place the food in the bin when its ready for collection,” continued Robertson.
Sorry, lady, not going to keep used fish bones in the fridge for a week, taking up valuable refrigerator space when I need a cold drink.
Oh, but wait: We could use the freezer instead:
Homes will also receive plastic pails to place food scraps before being thrown in the bins. Browning suggested the pails be kept in freezers and emptied into bins closer to the collection day to minimize odors, flies and rodents.
“If you get serviced on Tuesday and your cart gets emptied and then you go to throw some food waste in there and it’s 100 degrees, I think we can imagine what’s going to happen there,” she said.
Doesn’t everyone have lots of freezer space for seven days worth of these scraps?
The space issue has been noted by this commenter here, back when the scheme was announced:
I don’t know the schedule in Santa Barbara, but in Santa Maria only picks up green waste every 2 weeks. I do nothave room to compost nor freezer space for food scraps, Having these things for 2 weeks is an invitation to flies and rodents. What a mess to live with. I think this will be a disaster for some of us!
Now we got summer coming, with the blazing hot heat … and the problems are going to multiply.
Don’t think they are going to be nice to resisters to their greenie scheme, either. According to the San Diego Union-Tribune:
The City Council last month took preliminary steps toward meeting the goals of the new state law, which includes fines as large as $10,000 a day per violation for cities that fail to comply.
And citizens aren’t exempt, either, they do intend to inspect trash for sufficient gnats and maggots, according to Pacific Beach Monthly:
SB 1383 stipulates warnings and fines for serial offenders. A reporting system is being arranged for the city and haulers to collect and transmit data to the state.
“We’ll get compliance overall of who’s actually participating and who’s not, where we’ll be able to see diversion numbers that way,” Browning said.
It does raise costs, as my neighbor noted, and we all know who’s going to pay.
According to the San Diego Union-Tribune, last March:
The city must spend millions buying thousands of green waste bins for customers in single-family homes, in addition to adding trucks and hiring new drivers to comply with the new state law, which takes effect Jan. 1.
…and…
The city must buy enough green carts so that all 290,000 single-family home customers have one and it must extend green recycling service to the 89,000 customers who currently have none.
The state law also requires cities to collect green recycling once a week, forcing San Diego to double its existing recycling service, which is once every two weeks.
“We’re going to need more trucks, more containers, more drivers,” said Ken Prue, the city’s recycling program manager. “We’re in a planning phase now to identify all of our needs and necessary funding.”
Prue said the city, which now spends about $34 million a year on trash service, will have to spend millions more. But he declined to provide a more specific estimate.
Here’s the worst of it — it doesn’t work. Nobody’s getting the planet saved by this little intrusion into how we throw away our garbage:
According to CalMatters:
Reuse, reduce… recalibrate?
According to one watchdog agency, California is “falling short” in its ambitious organic waste recycling efforts and may need to hit the pause button until state agencies and local governments can sort themselves out.
But that rankled the state officials in charge, who considered the very suggestion, well, garbage — prompting a spirited debate at a Tuesday meeting of the Little Hoover Commission.
In an upcoming report, the commission points out what it considers major flaws in the state’s requirement to decrease the amount of organic material sent out to landfills — which includes household food scraps and yard waste — by 50% by 2020 and 75% by 2025. The mandate was created by a 2016 law, Senate Bill 1383, that fully took effect in 2022.
Not only did the state miss its 2020 target, the report finds, but California dumped more organic waste in landfills than it did in 2014 (the baseline year used to calculate targets) and is set to miss its 2025 goals, too. The commission’s top recommendation is for the Legislature to temporarily pause implementation.
Even from their own perspective, where they view global warming as a religious truth, it doesn’t fix global warming. It just intrudes on the lives of citizens with a one-size-fits-all solution — that is now an open invitation for rats and roaches and flies. Lucky us.
