Zero Waste Program

About the Program

Category: County Resiliency (Best in Category)

Year: 2014

The Zero Waste program is a multi-faceted approach to maximizing waste diversion. With an official goal of achieving zero waste, the county has used creative and collaborative strategies to achieve substantial waste reduction without the need for significant new investment. Through education, outreach, and creative collaboration with waste haulers, local cities and other partners a wide range of innovative and effective strategies were implemented. Long a pioneer in a state with an impressive record of waste reduction, the County of Santa Cruz recently achieved a waste diversion rate of 75%, making it a national leader. In January of 2013 the County was recognized by Governor Jerry Brown with the Governor’s Award for Environmental and Economic Leadership, California’s most prestigious environmental award. As a coastal county on the shores of the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary, the County of Santa Cruz is very sensitive to issues of marine debris. Among the first to prohibit the use of polystyrene foam in food service and to ban the use of single-use plastic bags, the County of Santa Cruz took the unprecedented steps of extending their plastic bag ban to restaurants and forbidding the retail sale of polystyrene foam picnic ware. A few of the County’s numerous other initiatives include an ordinance to require proper recycling of electronic waste, a thriving green business program, a model green building program, major efforts to reduce waste at special events, retail takeback programs for paint, fluorescent light bulbs, sharps, pharmaceuticals and used motor oil, a food waste composting program for local businesses, support for home-based composting, frequent outreach to the public through the media to encourage waste diversion, education through the Green Schools program, frequent cleanup programs at local beaches and partnerships with local environmental organizations to promote environmental awareness, including one of California’s largest Earth Day celebrations.