waste industry

March 10, 2026

Join SCS Engineers at the SWANA 2026 Western Regional Symposium April 20-23. SWANA California Gold Rush Chapter works to address California’s unique and challenging regulatory and environmental issues. The Annual Western Regional Symposium offers private and public members opportunities to form effective partnerships, resulting in creative solutions. Members gain access to education, training, specialized certifications in solid waste, and scholarships for future industry leaders. SCS Engineers is a proud sponsor and exhibitor.

The Annual SWANA 2026 Western Regional Symposium is at the DoubleTree by Hilton Hotel in Sonoma Wine Country. The event is open to all individuals interested in learning about the latest waste industry trends and how legislation impacts how we manage our resources. Participants will be able to explore and discuss the latest trends and technologies related to recycling, reuse, and waste management. Don’t miss this opportunity to connect with industry experts and fellow enthusiasts in a collaborative and inspiring environment. Register today!

Explore the full list of sessions from SCS thought leaders below and don’t miss this opportunity to learn from our leading professionals.

Brett Wilks – “Food Recovery in Rural versus Urban Areas of California”

Michelle Leonard – “What are you Wasting?”

Lauren Romanazzi – “Collaboration between Regional Governments and Agencies”

Srividhya Viswanathan – “Right-Sizing Gas Control under the New CA LMR: Ultra-Low Heat Input Flares for Small and/or Closed Landfills”

Raymond Huff, Patrick Sullivan, Stipe Markotic, and Quincy Laris – “Community Air Monitoring for Landfill Emissions; Approaches, Advice, and Best Practices”

Raymond Huff, Maxton Lam – “Update on the Implementation of the Wellfield Analysis Graph (WAG): An Innovation in Landfill Gas Data Analysis”

February 25, 2025

The SWANA Sierra Chapter collaborates to address California’s unique and challenging regulatory and environmental issues. The Annual Western Regional Symposium provides private and public members opportunities to form effective partnerships, resulting in creative solutions. Members gain access to education, training, specialized certifications in solid waste, and scholarships for future industry leaders.

The 54th Annual Western Regional Symposium is at the Tenaya Lodge in Yosemite. The event is open to all individuals interested in learning about the latest waste industry trends and how legislation impacts how we manage our resources. Participants will be able to explore and discuss the latest trends and technologies related to recycling, reuse, and waste management. Please stay connected with the agenda, announcements, and networking opportunities through the Whova app, making it easy for attendees to stay connected and engaged throughout the symposium.

Don’t miss this opportunity to connect with industry experts and fellow enthusiasts in a collaborative and inspiring environment. Register today!

Explore the full list of sessions from SCSer’s below and don’t miss the opportunity to learn from our leading professionals in the field.

• Erik Martig and Victoria Evans – “Can I Get Credit For That?”
• Evan Guignon – “How Impermeable are our Cells and Ponds Really?” A look into Geosynthetic Liner Damage and Repairs”
• Bill Haley – “Landfill Construction for integrated Gas Systems”
• Michelle Leonard –  “Regional Food Recovery Hubs”
• Lauren Beauban – “Are You Going to Eat That? A Crash Course in Kitchen Conservation”
• Melissa St. John – “Is Your Landfill GCCS Ready for Retirement?”
• Erik Martig – “Thinking About Launching a Community Scale Compost Site? What to Consider”
• Vidhya Viswanathan and Ray Huff – “‘L’ is for Landfill Redevelopment – From Golf Courses to Graveyards, Adventures in Landfill Redevelopment”
• Patrick Sullivan – “Current State of the Regulation of Composting Facilities under Air Quality Programs”
• Laura Johnson – “Waste Diversion: How to Measure Success Through Route Reviews and Waste Characterizations”
• Melissa Russo – “Advancing Drone Technologies for the Solid Waste Industry: Safer, Smarter, and More Efficient Data Collection”

November 7, 2024

The annual Environmental Compliance Conference returns to North Carolina in Raleigh-Durham on January 30. Join your fellow environmental professionals in an insightful event that focuses on regulations and ways to ensure compliance. This conference dives deep into legislation and policies currently impacting the air, water, waste, and natural resource industries. Build your network of resources, register for the event today.

December 20, 2017

By keeping open lines of communication between industry stakeholders and the U.S. EPA at a federal level, both parties have been able to improve the quality of GHG emissions data reported under the GHGRP while reducing the monitoring burden.

Read this SCS Engineer’s abstract that discusses the cooperation between the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and solid waste industry stakeholders in developing, revising, and implementing the landfill reporting requirements as part of the federal GHG Reporting Program (GHGRP) (40 CFR Part 98). The paper covers:

• Outreach in early stages of the GHGRP development through recent decisions to utilize GHG emissions data from the GHGRP in the EPA’s current draft Inventory of U.S. Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Sinks: 1990-2015 (GHG Inventory).
• The initial implicit assumptions made by both the EPA and Stakeholders, using the reporting of “back-up devices” and the calculation of the fraction of time a destruction device was operating as an example of the assumptions made and an illustration of how those assumptions were implemented implicitly in the GHGRP.
• How stakeholders have reached out to the EPA to address incorrect or misleading assumptions.
• A summary of how stakeholders work to provide the EPA with additional data necessary to justify changes to the regulation, including revisiting oxidation factors that were rejected in the initial GHGRP and reducing methane measurement frequency at landfills.
• How changes have improved landfill reporting under the GHGRP to make it more representative of actual emissions and more reflective of the sites that are reporting.
• The unintended consequences of stakeholder outreach and revisions to the GHGRP for landfills.

Click here to read the paper.