CRRA 2022 Conference & Tradeshow

Executive Director

Solana Center for Environmental Innovation has been consulting to business, event-organizers, and schools about waste prevention and diversion for a decade. The result is thousands of pounds of edible foods donated from school cafeterias; hundreds of businesses receiving outreach and training; and events achieving as much as 98% diversion. Solana Center’s Environmental Solutions team has addressed a variety of issues, including logistics, motivation, infrastructure, rescue partnerships, and donation dumping by food businesses. Jessica will share lessons from capacity planning as well as from the field based on the years of work by the team. She will also discuss trends in behaviors and solutions.

Founder, CEO

Boots-on-the-ground outreach is hard work. From visual inspections to full blown waste audits, there is so much information to collect and so many people to educate. Unsurprisingly, fieldwork tools and cloud-based software have become an integral part of waste characterization and contamination monitoring. For managing SB 1383’s Route Review requirements, jurisdictions and their outreach collaborators need a solution for seamless data collection and management. Luckily, Recyclist has been developing tools for collaborative outreach since 2014.

Since the initial planning of SB 1383, Recyclist has researched and developed tools for not only the entire Implementation Record, but also for Route Reviews specifically. Working with organizations who were already conducting lid-flipping audits like The Recycling Partnership, Recyclist was able to refine the tool in preparation for SB 1383. Recyclist Program Tracker customers may now efficiently gather their Route Review data in the field and use it for more than just fulfilling state requirements. With accurate information, photos and results collected in real-time, organizations can use their reports to improve program participation and reduce contamination levels. Tune into this session to learn about how Recyclist customers have utilized the Recyclist Program Tracker’s Route Review tool, and how you can put their best practices into action in your program. Let’s tangibly move the needle towards higher participation and lower contamination in our recycling and organics programs. 

Environmental Engineering Coordinator

This paper presents insights on the success of the City of Sunnyvale’s food scarps collection and processing programs. In 2017, City introduced a food scraps collection program to single-family households with a goal to divert organics that Sunnyvale residents were disposing of in the garbage. Since January 2022, all commercial customers and multi-family residential customers are also enrolled in it. Additionally, the City of Sunnyvale provides a separate collection of food scraps to businesses.

The city’s franchise waste hauler (Specialty) collects organics from residential and commercial businesses. 

Collected food scraps loads are brought to the Sunnyvale Material Recovery and Transfer Station (SMaRT Station®) for pre-processing where it's converted into an organic slurry. The resultant slurry is transported to the Sustainable Organic Solutions (SOS) animal feed production facility in Santa Clara. 

The City is exploring anaerobic digestion of the organic slurry at the City's Plant in near future. 

The goal of this paper presentation is to share the evolution of the program, provide insights to implement and run a successful food scraps collection program, and, in particular, explore the implementation challenges a jurisdiction can face given the regulatory changes. The paper presentation will also share insights gained in the process of implementing, convincing the community, technical, political, and economic parameters as part of the evaluation process.

The audience will learn: 

• Insights gained through the development and implementation of the program 
• How the key factors of technology, environmental benefit, economics, and policy may influence the selection of the preferred strategy.