Vol. I, No. 48 · San Francisco — Friday, October 9, 2026 · Price: zero, by 2020

BY MAXINE DOLAN, CITY DESK

On March 6, 2003, San Francisco’s Commission on the Environment voted 5 to 0 to give the city a deadline. By 2020, the resolution said, San Francisco would send nothing to a landfill.

It never came close. The state counted 718,863 tons of San Francisco trash going to landfills in 2003 and 713,010 in 2019, the last full year before the deadline, less than 1 percent fewer. The city’s public scorecard still says San Francisco has “cut its landfill disposal in half” since 2003. In 2018 the city set a new goal: by 2030, half of what it sent in 2015.

The line has made a round trip. It peaked at 887,066 tons in 1998, then fell in most years to 446,635 in 2011, almost exactly half the peak. A city law requiring every property to recycle and compost passed in 2009, midway through that fall. Then the line turned. By 2018 the city was sending 739,691 tons, more than in the year it set the deadline.

More people do not explain the climb. From 2011 to 2018 the city’s population grew 6.5 percent, by the state’s estimates, while its landfill tonnage grew 66 percent. Per person, that is about 1,090 pounds in 2011 and 1,700 in 2018. The count covers businesses and construction sites as well as homes. In 2016 the San Francisco Chronicle tied the rise to more residents, more workers and a building boom. The state’s file does not separate construction debris, so it cannot confirm the cause.

The state’s count did drop, in mid-2019, from 413,338 tons in the first half of the year to 299,672 in the second, as the state moved landfills to a new reporting system. In the three years before, the second half had always run heavier. The old and new systems agree within 3.5 percent on those two quarters, but both show the lower level, so the overlap cannot say whether less trash left the city or the new rules counted it differently. Since 2020 it has held between 481,547 and 515,037 tons a year, still about 1,222 pounds a resident in 2025, above 2011’s 1,090.

The city’s own gauge agrees with the state’s count until 2019 and parts ways after. SF Environment tracks the tons Recology, the city’s garbage company, hauls to its main landfill on an average workday. The figure rose 45 percent from 2009 to 2019, to 1,601, as the state’s count rose 47 percent, then slipped only 5 percent by 2025, to 1,523. Other haulers, construction debris or a change in how the state assigns trash to a city could each explain the gap; neither file says which.

The scorecard’s file begins in 2008, so its halving since 2003 cannot be checked there; since 2008 its own figure has risen 19 percent. The state’s 2025 count is 28 percent below 2003, nearly all of it since the 2019 change. Confidence is high on each year’s tonnage and on the flat line from 2003 to 2019, counted one way throughout. It is medium on how far the trash has fallen since, because the fall arrived with the new count and the city’s gauge does not show it.

In 2003 the city gave itself seventeen years to reach zero. In 2018 it gave itself twelve to reach half.

From January 2024 through June 2025, the health department closed 228 restaurants, some more than once. Cockroaches, rodents, flies or other vermin are cited in 259 of the 302 closure reports. Most passed reinspection within a week.

BY MEL ADLER, COMMERCE DESK

The notice goes on the door. It tells the owner that the permit to operate “is hereby temporarily suspended” and that the kitchen must close immediately and stay closed until a city inspector reinstates it.

San Francisco’s health inspectors issued that notice to restaurants 302 times from January 2024 through June 2025, about once every 35 restaurant inspections. After that the city’s public file thins by about 70 percent, unexplained, so the count stops there. Vermin is among the violations in 259 of the 302 closure reports, or 86 percent; most reports list several. The rule cited orders the owner to “eliminate the infestation/activity of cockroaches/rodents/flies/vermin.”

Across all food permits, markets and take-out counters included, the department closed businesses 385 times, once every 47 inspections; 316 of those reports, 82 percent, cite vermin. The city’s 2020–2023 file shows 79 percent, 379 of 478, under a broader item that also counts birds and other animals. It logged a closure every 35 inspections, in years that include the pandemic shutdowns.

Finding vermin does not by itself close a kitchen. Inspectors cited it at 3,091 inspections in those 18 months, and 316 ended in a closure, about one in ten. Staying open anyway is a misdemeanor, the notice warns, punishable by a $1,000 fine, up to six months in jail, or both, for each offense.

Most closures are short. Of the 385, 157 were followed by a passing inspection on the same permit within a day, and 288, three in four, within a week. Twenty-eight took more than a month and 33 show no pass since. Those are the least reliable counts: 20 of the 61 came in the three months before the file thinned, so some reinspections probably never reached it. Confidence is high on the closure and vermin counts, lower on the longest waits.

A correction. This paper reported on July 27 that the city’s open record of these inspections ended in November 2019 with no successor. That was wrong. The health department has posted a 2020–2023 file since November 2023 and a 2024-to-present file since May 2025; this desk’s search of the city’s data catalog missed both. Both leave gaps, in early 2020 and late 2023.

ON THE CALENDAR

AI Native Summit. A one-day gathering for people who build software with AI: technical talks, hands-on workshops, and the final round of a coding competition. 465 had registered as of October 8, up 284 since the desk first saw the page on August 26. A one-off, billed as part of San Francisco Tech Week.

Friday, October 9, 10:00 AM · 847 Howard St., Yerba Buena · $50, per the event page · lu.ma/3t95uj7s

From the desk’s calendar: public Luma pages, counts as of October 8, 1:52 AM. Tell the desk about the gathering it missed.

SOURCES & RECEIPTS

1. SF Commission on the Environment, Resolution No. 002-03-COE, March 6, 2003, “adopting a date of 2020” for “zero waste to landfill,” 5–0. 2. CalRecycle, tons disposed with San Francisco as jurisdiction of origin, queried October 9, 2026. Disposal Reporting System, 1995–2019 (1998: 887,066; 2003: 718,863; 2009: 484,812; 2011: 446,635; 2015: 590,100; 2018: 739,691; 2019: 713,010). 2019 by half: 413,338 and 299,672. Its successor, RDRS, landfilled tons, 2020–2025 (low 481,547 in 2024, high 515,037 in 2025). Overlap, 2019 Q3–Q4: 299,672 old system, 289,075 new. 3. DataSF kc49-udxn, Scorecard Measures, measure 380, “Average workday tons of trash to primary landfill,” monthly, January 2008–August 2026, Recology data reported to SF Environment; yearly averages of the monthly values (2008: 1,276; 2009: 1,104; 2019: 1,601; 2025: 1,523). 4. SF Environment, “Zero Waste” program history, sfenvironment.org, read October 9, 2026 (2009 recycling law; 2018 pledge); Refuse Rate Board hearing, Item 3, May 30, 2025: “total disposal by 50% below 2015 levels.” 5. California Department of Finance, E-2, July 1 estimates: 2011, 819,178; 2018, 872,338; 2025 (preliminary), 843,130. Pounds a person: tons times 2,000, divided by population. 6. San Francisco Chronicle, “SF not as green as it thinks on garbage,” September 19, 2016, read via a trade-press repost. Queries in receipts.json.

2. Closure notice text, from the file’s closure rows (Cal. Health and Safety Code §§ 114405, 114409). 8. SF Department of Public Health via DataSF: Health Inspection Scores (2024–Present), tvy3-wexg, created May 7, 2025, queried October 9, 2026; January 2024–June 2025: 18,196 inspections, 385 closures at 293 permits, 316 citing § 114259.5; restaurants (permit types H24–H26): 10,478 inspections, 302 closures at 228 permits, 259 citing it. About 1,011 inspections a month through June 2025, 299 since. Health Inspections (2020–2023), 5tti-66ds, created November 1, 2023, 16,915 inspections, March 9, 2020–August 3, 2023: 478 closures, 379 citing “No insects, rodents, birds or nonservice animals.” Queries in receipts.json.

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