Building a World Class Organic Waste Management Infrastructure from Scratch

About the Program

Category: County Resiliency (Best in Category)

Year: 2021

OC Waste & Recycling (OCWR) has undertaken the unprecedented challenge of developing a regional organic waste management program for the County of Orange. Given OCWR’s leadership role in regional solid waste management, the strategy of the program is to contribute to the local infrastructure, and the tactic is to build sustainable composting operations at all three OC landfills to support the recycling of organic materials. These activities contribute to meeting diversion mandates as well as to meeting California’s statewide goal of diverting organics from disposal to achieve climate change-related reduction targets. The program also will help preserve landfill capacity and extend the lifespan of the landfills for current and future generations. To date, OCWR has designed and constructed organic processing facilities at two of the municipal solid waste landfills. A third facility is being designed and is scheduled to be operational in 2022. The County composting facilities being built by OCWR ensure a local solution to recycle organic materials long after the landfills have reached capacity.