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<\/p>\nSan Diegans throw enough trash into green bins meant for organic waste that the city paid to have teams of workers pick it out by hand.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
The city hasn\u2019t quantified how bad the trash contamination is yet. But it was bad enough to launch a two-week experiment where groups of formerly homeless men armed with pickers separated trash from truckloads of city organic waste at the Miramar Landfill\u2019s Greenery.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
The goal is to see whether human trash sorting could be a cost-effective way to achieve cleaner compost, said Kelly Terry, spokeswoman for the city\u2019s Environmental Services Department. Right now people are throwing car parts, gas tanks, hoses and whiskey bottles into their green bin \u2014 which can break landfill sorting equipment and bring the entire composting process to a standstill. <\/p>\n
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(Left to right) A collection of items that were removed from compost on display at Miramar Greenery on Tuesday, Aug. 19, 2025. A pizza box in a pile of compost. \/ Zo\u00eb Meyers for Voice of San Diego<\/p>\n
City staff chalk up the contamination they\u2019re seeing to the learning curve of San Diegans still dealing with a new-ish requirement to separate food waste in a green bin.<\/a> The city rolled out green bins to 200,000 San Diegans in 2023. A year later, Voice of San Diego reported that the city chose not to crack down on people<\/a> who put garbage in those bins.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n The city still doesn\u2019t enforce bad green bin behavior. Terry confirmed the city is developing plans to do so, but didn\u2019t give any details. For now, the city is scrambling to deal with contamination on its own.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n On Tuesday morning, the scene at the Miramar Greenery was unexpected.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n The trash-picking team of men worked unpaid, seven-hour shifts as part of a collaboration with the East County Transitional Living Center, an organization that helps unhoused people reenter the workforce. That\u2019s how their program functions, explained Julie Hayden, the center\u2019s chief executive officer.\u00a0<\/p>\n These men spend a year in the center\u2019s program rotating into work programs to gain job skills. By the end of that year, Hayden said most gain permanent housing and employment.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n The city couldn\u2019t tell me as of Tuesday afternoon how much the East County Transitional Living Center got paid for the two-week pilot. Hayden also declined to say but said the money goes toward the men\u2019s program and is likely cheaper than the city hiring actual staff.\u00a0<\/p>\n Earl Davis, one of the pickers, said he found a toilet seat buried in the green bin waste. Another said he found a live turtle.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cIt looks like people are just using their green bin like a trash can,\u201d Davis said.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n City waste collection trucks began rolling into the landfill\u2019s Greenery around 10 a.m., dumping their loads in front of Davis and his coworkers. They removed bottles, green compostable produce bags, pizza boxes and other stuff that isn\u2019t organic before a bulldozer scraped the remains into large rows.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n I walked past the rows that had been cleaned by human hands toward ones that hadn\u2019t. The difference was notable.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Full plastic garbage bags, large pieces of Styrofoam, shoes, clothing and wine bottles mixed with palm fronds, tree clippings and fruit peels. Together, they formed towering walls of ungroomed waste. All of this awaited the next step in the city\u2019s composting process: the grinder.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n But the grinder \u2013 huge, mechanized metal rollers meant to break down green waste so it can be composted \u2013 busted earlier that morning. Somebody had thrown a huge piece of metal into their green bin which went through the grinder undetected and snapped part of its metal undercarriage.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n The grinder\u2019s only salvation is a small excavator tasked with pulling some of the obvious larger trash items out of the green waste piles. But it can\u2019t catch everything.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Lalo Hernandez, a city equipment technician, said he\u2019s pulled car parts and motors from green waste going through the grinder.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWhen this machine is going it sounds like you\u2019re standing next to a train. So for that \u2018clunk\u2019 (of the trashed metal) to outdo the sound of this machine, that\u2019s pretty bad,\u201d Hernandez said.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Once the green waste, and any trash inside, is ground down, larger excavators push it into even larger rows.\u00a0\u00a0I felt like an ant overlooking a giant, unplanted garden.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Radiation from the sun heats the green waste rows to an internal temperature of around160 degrees Fahrenheit. That\u2019s enough to kill harmful pests or diseases. Bugs, fungi and bacteria do the rest of the dirty work to clean the compost.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n The compost then goes through another sifting and grinding process where all the good organic muck flies out into a pristine pile as rich, black dirt. That\u2019s sold by the city or given away for free to city residents. There\u2019s also a mid-level quality compost that\u2019s still riddled with plastic bottle caps, strips of plastic bags and the like that can be used for erosion control. The rest is landfilled.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cMost people are actually doing a great job,\u201d said Jen Winfrey, assistant director of the city\u2019s Environmental Services Department. \u201cThe city had a pretty mature green collection program. People who had those bins are very used to it and keep it pretty clean. It\u2019s just this massive rollout and it takes time.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/miramargreenery-4-1024x683.jpg\")
Workers remove trash and other items from compost in a pilot program at Miramar Greenery on Tuesday, Aug. 19, 2025. \/ Zo\u00eb Meyers for Voice of San Diego<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/miramargreenery-11-1024x683.jpg\")
City workers fix a compost grinder at Miramar Greenery on Tuesday, Aug. 19, 2025. The grinder frequently needs repairs when non compostable items run through it.\/ Zo\u00eb Meyers for Voice of San Diego<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/miramargreenery-1-1024x683.jpg\")
Rows of compost await processing at Miramar Greenery on Tuesday, Aug. 19, 2025. \/ Zo\u00eb Meyers for Voice of San Diego<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/miramargreenery-12-1024x683.jpg\")
Armando Alferez separates trash and other items from a pile of compost at Miramar Greenery on Tuesday, Aug. 19, 2025. \/ Zo\u00eb Meyers for Voice of San Diego<\/p>\n