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In 2008 the County of Orange Board of Supervisors formally changed the name of our department from Integrated Waste Management Department to OC Waste & Recycling. Waste referred to the core function of landfilling, and recycling addressed the department’s educational outreach and promotion of proper recycling behavior.
In 2019, OCWR actively pursued ways to expand our role and core functions well beyond landfilling, to more fully address the department name since Orange County residents and businesses will continue to need waste and recycling services in perpetuity. But how does a landfill system serve the public need in perpetuity when hard-closure dates are an eventuality?
The answer is a pivot. Both to preserve capacity and drive re-use of materials that can be repurposed as opposed to disposed of, such as mattresses and scrap metal, OCWR launched efforts to pivot to a Resource Recovery Facility model, targeting both organic and non-organic materials. Last year, as part of the pivot, we revised our vision statement to:
A landfill and resource recovery system that safely manages waste, recycles resources and protects the environment for Orange County residents and businesses.
Launched initially in 2016, OCWR’s Organics Management Strategic Initiative is the roadmap to the department’s role and responsibilities in an industry that is steering its way through far-reaching, legislation-driven transformation. Among OCWR’s action items was to establish a pilot project to test and prove the County’s ability to operate a commercial-scale composting facility. In 2019 OCWR team members completed the second of a two-year pilot project. Using the residential greenwaste the landfills already receive from curbside bins, the pilots tested various methods of composting and types of equipment. Pilots were executed at all three landfill sites, and all three returned a conclusion that OCWR is prepared to operate commercial scale composting facilities.
At the same time, other team members worked on the required permitting and compliance-related activities. We executed the CEQA process steps, including Mitigated Negative Declarations (MND) and public information meetings.
The legislation that is driving the transformation of organic waste/materials management leaves in its wake mandates for which there is grossly insufficient recycling infrastructure. But it also has provided an opportunity for OCWR to inspire and lead change for all of the County’s 34 cities as well as the unincorporated areas for which it is directly responsible. The OCWR commercial-scale composting facilities will contribute significantly to infrastructure development.
In August, OCWR held a first-of-its-kind workshop to support city managers who need to prepare their elected officials to make organic waste management business and policy decisions. At that event, OCWR Director Tom Koutroulis shared that by the deadline of 2022, the County’s composting operation will be positioned as an option for cities and jurisdictions that otherwise could be subject to CalRecycle fines and penalties if they fail to meet new organics mandates.
He ended his presentation with a slide that read: "If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together." That theme remains central to the County’s approach to contributing to a regional response.
SB 1383 surpasses AB 939 as California's next aggressive and industry-changing legislation.