From Mandates to Momentum: Driving Composting Compliance in Multifamily Housing

Learn how this San Francisco property manager tackled San Francisco's organic's diversion ordinance (the precursor to California's SB1383) compliance in multifamily housing by addressing real-world barriers like language gaps, resident turnover, and limited space. After facing contamination fines, the presenter developed practical strategies, streamlined communication, user-friendly bin designs, with visual education that increased diversion rates and reduced contamination. Discover how partnerships with property management across California through an affiliate rebate program can incentivize adoption of these solutions. The collaboration has strengthened resident participation, reinforced compliance, and demonstrated how collective efforts can drive sustainable change.

This session outlines a proven, easy, and practical process for transforming composting mandates into measurable success. Learn about rollout strategies, adaptable communication tools, and examples of effective partnerships between property management and residents. The session covers what works (like targeted signage and multilingual materials), what doesn’t (such as overly complex instructions), and how to align building-level action with broader policy goals. This session is about a practical and well-implemented strategy for sustainable materials management in multifamily settings. Whether you’re a municipal planner, hauler, or communications or planning professional, you’ll leave with actionable insights and tools to make organics compliance achievable, even in the most complex residential environments.

About the Speaker

Michelle Horneff-Cohen
Founder | Clean Composting Company

While cleaning up from dinner one night, Michelle Horneff-Cohen’s husband started putting food scraps into an empty ice cream tub and the light bulb went ON for her to create what is now The Compost Collector®. As a recovering San Francisco Residential Property Manager for over 25 years in San Francisco, Clean Composting Company was a pandemic passion project for Michelle - she personally wanted something to deal with the icky, messy, and smelly organics bins in her home and something that her residents would actually use - since she knew all too well for over a decade that they were not using the plastic kitchen caddy provided by the waste management company. So, she endeavored to create a product that is as pure as possible for the compost stream as possible – and The Compost Collector® was born! It’s a 100% pre-consumer, PFAS Free, paper pulp container with lid than contains no inks, no glues, and no toxins. Michelle is now fully emersed in the organics side of waste management, advocating for composting programs worldwide and brings her unique perspective from multifamily management here to you today with: From Mandates to Momentum: Driving Composting Compliance in Multifamily Housing.