Sacramento, California - California is going big with a new year's resolution to enact the biggest food recycling program in the US, meant to keep food waste out of landfills.

Starting January 1, California will try to stem the tide of food waste ending up in landfills by introducing green waste bins, according to the LA Times. These new bins are expected to solve many of the garbage problems plaguing the state.

Right now, people mostly toss their leftover food into the garbage, which means it joins other organic waste like yard clippings. This type of waste contributes a fifth of California's total methane emissions, and takes up half of all the space in the state's landfills.

Leftover food that lands in the dump, like apple cores, onion skins, and other organic waste, releases methane when it decomposes, which is an even more potent greenhouse gas in the short term than CO2.

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Once adopted by Californian cities, waste disposal trucks would take your unwanted organics and turn them into mulch, compost, and biogas, which in turn could be used to make crop soil more productive or meet energy needs with biogas.

Cities will be expected to self-report, and those who don't comply may end up paying a lot of greens for failing to go green: up to $10,000 per day.

Organic waste like leftover food scraps might not be a problem for California's overburdened landfills anymore if cities get their bins sorted out.