Construction has started at Republic Services’ sustainability park in San Bernardino, California.
The facility will process organics, with a focus on expanding composting capacity across the region. The Phoenix-based hauler and recycler expects the site to open in late 2026.
The San Bernardino Sustainability Park sits on 140 acres, with 60 acres dedicated to compost operations. The facility will use aerated static pile composting technology to speed processing times. It will also include depackaging equipment to remove contamination from incoming material.
“The San Bernardino Sustainability Park strengthens local organics infrastructure while helping communities divert organic waste from landfills,” said Chris Seney, director of organics for Republic Services, in a statement. “It’s a circular solution that puts organic material back to work in the communities it comes from.”
The site will process more than 300,000 tons of yard and food waste annually at startup. Republic Services has designed the facility to scale capacity to 600,000 tons per year.
The facility will help the region meet California’s organic waste mandate under SB 1383. The 2016 law set a target of cutting statewide organic waste disposal 75% below 2014 levels by 2025, building on an earlier 50% reduction target for 2020.It also gave the agency regulatory authority to enforce those goals.
CalRecycle finalized the implementing regulations in November 2020, and they took effect in January 2022. The law also requires counties to assess their existing organics recycling capacity and report those estimates to the agency, working with the cities, regional agencies and special districts that provide collection service within their borders.
As of April 2026, CalRecycle reported that 97% of required communities and 75% of required businesses now have the capacity to recycle organic waste and that 1.08 billion meals have been rescued and delivered to Californians facing food insecurity. The agency expects its food recycling and rescue goals will cut 3 million cars’ worth of air pollution each year once fully achieved.
A network of Republic Services transfer stations will provide feedstock to the new facility, serving as a regional organics hub for Los Angeles and Orange counties.
Republic Services projects the facility will cut the volume of organic waste sent to landfills, reduce long-haul transportation to distant processors and lower the vehicle emissions tied to that hauling.
The company also expects the site to return finished compost to the communities that generate the waste and to create jobs during construction and operations.
Republic Services operates 17 organics facilities in California, including six compost sites, six commercial food waste preprocessing facilities, four green waste sites and an anaerobic digester. The company processed 886,000 tons of food and yard waste across the state in 2025.
