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new ocde program
A long-envisioned educational program moved to the launching pad in 2020. In June the Board of Supervisors approved a $500,000 contract to support a partnership program between OCWR and the OC Department of Education (OCDE).
Called the Classroom and Family Engagement Curriculum, the program will bring critical recycling and waste management learning directly to students and their families. Through this partnership, OCWR and OCDE will be able to provide educational materials that support classroom lessons, student engagement and family activities connected to local Orange County waste diversion priorities.
The program responds to recent legislation, including AB 341 (Mandatory Commercial Recycling), AB 1826 (Mandatory Commercial Organics Recycling) and SB 1383 (Organics Diversion and Edible Food Recovery). It also will provide responses to significant recycling market changes, which have required expanded public education and outreach to assist the County in meeting its diversion goals.
The first phase of the program will be to develop, market, implement and assess a pilot project. Based on the assessment, the program will be developed into a curriculum that will be available for use in schools Countywide. The curriculum will support OCDE's academic content and will integrate OCWR’s current and future educational resources.
social media outreach
With COVID-19 impacts came the need to increase outreach, to inform and update residents on such changes as Materials Exchange programs opening and closing, postings to notify residents to wear masks at sites, etc.
Equally as important, we had to cancel our many in-person outreach events and convert as much educational outreach activity to virtual.
shift to virtual
OCWR’s educational outreach efforts moved to virtual engagement due to COVID, including a number of public and community meetings. Among the educational outreach programs and opportunities we promoted on social media and the OCLandfills.com website were:
Grant Program Update
In 2018, seven organizations in Orange County received funding through OCWR’s Regional Recycling and Waste Reduction Grant program, which is funded by the AB 939 Self-Haul Surcharge. The surcharge is an economic pricing incentive to encourage self-haulers to use material processing facilities to remove recyclable materials before taking waste to the landfill. The grant program supports compliance with state-mandated organic waste diversion goals.
In 2020, the grant recipients entered Year Three, marking a key milestone in achieving self-sustained funding of their programs. Despite impacts due to the pandemic, necessary adjustments are being made to support the sustained programming heading into the final years and hopefully beyond.
grant recipients and their programs
City of Anaheim:
Commercial food recovery and organics program.
City of Irvine:
Commercial food recovery and organics collection program.
Costa Mesa Sanitary District:
Residential organics recycling program
Waste Not OC Coalition:
Helping resolve food insecurity by recovering edible food
Discovery Cube:
Education about organics and composting
Inside the Outdoors:
Education about composting and food recovery
Katella High School:
School recycling and composting program
five-year grant cycle
