CRRA2019

Co-Founder & CEO

Miranda Wang is Co-founder and CEO of BioCellection Inc, an innovation company that turns unrecyclable plastic waste into valuable chemicals. She brings together recycling companies, jurisdictions, and corporations to solve the plastic pollution crisis. She has raised over $3M in investments from funders such as The City of San Jose, GreenWaste Recovery, Schmidt Family Foundation, and Elemental Excelerator. She is a Forbes 30 Under 30, Echoing Green Climate Fellow, a UN Young Champion of the Earth, and Pritzker Environmental "Genius" Prize Winner. She received her Bachelor of Arts in biology, philosophy, and engineering entrepreneurship from the University of Pennsylvania.

As one of the co-inventors of BioCellection's technology, I will provide an overview of this novel chemical recycling process and its ability to help the US recycling industry. Topics of focus include which types of hard-to-recycle plastics the technology will accept from waste processors, applications and markets for our virgin grade chemical products, competitive analysis between this technology versus alternative methods including pyrolysis, and sustainability performance. I will also explore the different business models through which waste companies and jurisdictions could benefit from this technology while building a strong, domestic circular economy for plastic recycling. 

Deputy Director

Valerie Osmond is the Deputy Director for the City of San José's Environmental Services Department, Integrated Waste Management Division. Valerie leads the residential solid waste program agreements, which total $100 million annually and constitute the largest privatized solid waste system in the nation. She also leads the commercial solid waste program, which has an exclusive franchise hauler operating an innovative wet/dry system, with organic materials diverted to an anaerobic digestion facility producing electricity and compost.

As Deputy Director for the City of San José’s Integrated Waste Management program, I will provide a local government perspective on the advantages of this pilot and public-private partnership with a local start-up company and one of our four residential solid waste haulers, GreenWaste Recovery, to test the reuse of hard-to-recycle plastics. San Jose is the Capitol of Silicon Valley, the third largest city in California, and tenth largest city in the U.S. The City’s solid waste programs are guided by the City’s goal to reach zero waste by 2022, Climate Smart Plan to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, and the San José Mayor’s direction to explore partnerships with local stakeholders to test, demonstrate, and replicate new recycling solutions to current recycling market challenges.

In Fiscal Year 2017-18, the residential garbage and recycling program achieved an overall 79% diversion rate, however, this is susceptible to decrease due to the impact of China’s National Sword Policy, where previously recovered recyclables (like film plastics) from mixed waste processing and single-stream recyclables are now landfilled as residue. Since the City pays for landfilled residue from solid waste process and other streams, an increase in tons landfilled financially impacts ratepayers through higher disposal costs.

If this pilot proves successful, GreenWaste Recovery could divert more San José material from landfill thus increasing the residential diversion rate. This pilot could also be an important starting point for more innovative partnerships to identify more ways to divert material from landfill through source-reduction, reuse, and recycling.

Director of Sustainability and Strategy

Katelyn began working with GreenWaste in 2012, serving the GreenWaste of Palo Alto office in an outreach capacity. Katelyn has overseen and coordinated the implementation of public education and outreach programs, conversion to fully-automated collection routes, and expansion of collection agreements. In her current role, Katelyn is responsible for companywide sustainability practices, impactful community engagement, and the development of innovative practices and projects. Katelyn received a B.S. in City and Regional Planning from Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo. 

As the Director of Business Development for GreenWaste supporting the hauling and material processing operations, I will share our approach to maximizing market opportunities and maintaining economic resiliency in light of China’s National Sword Policy that includes our partnership with BioCellection. With many collection programs contracting their list of materials accepted in recycling containers, I will discuss our perspective on maintaining an expansive list of acceptable recyclable materials and why keeping materials clean and dry maximizes recovery and supports diversion goals. I will also discuss GreenWaste’s focus on innovation and integrating new technologies, striking the delicate balance between processing throughput, quality control and marketability.

The GreenWaste Recovery Material Recovery Facility (MRF) in San José includes three (3) separate processing lines and handles up to 3,500 tons per day of recyclable materials, Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) and source separated organics from more than forty (40) different jurisdictions. We have sought to minimize the impact of National Sword by 1) establishing moisture and organic contamination thresholds for inbound materials that determines how materials are handed, 2) making capital investments and increase quality control staffing to reduce non-target material contamination in recovered products, and 3) seeking out new avenues to market products and promote the development of domestic markets. With a significant portion of the MRF’s inbound materials originating from the City of San José and a large portion of the non-fiber materials recovered being those materials targeted by BioCellection’s technology, the synergistic partnership with BioCellection and the City of San José seemed natural.