Bay Meadows

Get composting and get those kitchen scraps in the green! Earth month is a great reminder that San Mateo residents and businesses should now be adjusting their habits for the new statewide composting law Senate Bill 1383. Join a virtual composting workshop on April 26 to learn more about how to recycle your fruit and vegetable scraps, leaves, and plant cuttings into compost. The virtual workshop teaches composting options suitable for those with or without a backyard making it ideal for everyone at Bay Meadows. The Cal Recycle SB 1383 Short-lived Climate Pollutants Organic Waste Regulations requires everyone in California to recycle all organic waste, including paper, cardboard, yard materials, food scraps, and food-soiled paper. According to RethinkWaste: 71% of all waste landfilled by San Mateo County is organic material (organic in this case meaning coming from recently living organisms like plants or animals). Reducing organic waste by 75% from the 2014 base year would require diversion of about 292,000 tons per year. While this goal may seem big, each one of us has the power to help reach this goal.

Test Your Knowledge

Olive oil? Coffee grounds? Burgers? Bones? Play this interactive game to test your knowledge of which materials go in your blue recycling, green compost, and black garbage carts in the RethinkWaste service area. Click and drag an item to the cart you believe it goes into and see if you are right!

SB 1383 aims to:

• Reduce statewide disposal of organic waste by 75 percent by Jan. 1, 2025 (based on 2014 levels).
• Rescue at least 20 percent of currently disposed of edible food for human consumption by 2025.

To help, Sustainable San Mateo County has created some resources for locals to make it easier to comply with the new rules on composting and food waste reduction.

Residents of Bay Meadows and respective businesses have been provided curbside organics (compost/green cart). collection containers for organic waste and recyclables for employees, contractors, tenants, and customers (located in each parking garage) and one in Persimmon Park in order to divert organic materials from the landfill via Recology San Mateo County. 

Color Coded:
Look for the correct colors on outdoor and indoor containers, the container bodies or lids will be gray/black for garbage, blue for recycling, and green for organics. In addition, containers shall have labels with graphic images to indicate primary materials accepted and prohibited.

Do you have a plot in the Bay Meadows Community Garden? Join the Community Garden Facebook Group and share ideas for composting, planting and more.

Conveniently located between San Francisco and Palo Alto in San Mateo, Bay Meadows offers housing within walking distance of Caltrain. Ease of transportation is only one reason you’ll fall in love with Bay Meadows. Smartly-designed, high-quality new homes and apartments sit among 18 acres of open space, which includes parks, a community garden, public art, ball fields, bocce and basketball courts and a new playground. All this just a walk from Whole Foods, Blue Bottle Coffee, Slices San Mateo, ROAM Artisan Burgers, Fieldwork Brewing Co., Tin Pot Creamery, Hillsdale Shopping Center and more. Learn more about what Midurban life offers by following our Facebook page.

Photo credits: SMC Office of Sustainability