When people think about organic waste recycling, the first images that usually come to mind are green carts, compost piles, or the occasional food scraps pail tucked under a kitchen sink, often accompanied by concerns about smells, pests, and mess. But in cities like Alameda, California, the journey toward strong organics participation begins long before anything reaches a bin. It starts with understanding people, spaces, habits, and the subtle operational details that influence how waste is created in the first place.
That’s the foundation of the SCS Engineers technical assistance approach in the City of Alameda. This multi‑year partnership connects the City with hundreds of local businesses and multifamily properties to increase recycling and organics diversion. With over 163 generators engaged in FY 2024–2025 and resulting improvements equivalent to diverting roughly 205 tons of landfill material per year and increasing organics diversion by 22 tons per year, SCS has shown what’s possible when technical assistance is not just a service, but a relationship.
Over the years, we have established best management practices for conducting technical assistance focused on organic waste:
Starting Upstream: Preventing Waste Before It Starts
One of the defining features of a successful zero-waste technical assistance approach is that it doesn’t wait for waste to become a problem. Instead, outreach begins with conversations about reducing material at the source. Businesses are encouraged to rethink their purchasing habits, explore reusable alternatives, and reduce reliance on single‑use disposables. As shown above, these prevention‑focused strategies not only help improve compliance with organic regulations but also result in cost savings and a reduced environmental footprint.
Public-private partnerships with local organizations that provide reusable dishware have proven effective mechanisms for businesses to reduce overall waste production in the City of Alameda. The City partnered with Rethink Disposable to provide resources, funding, and training to make the switch from disposable foodware to reusables. This upstream focus sets the stage for everything that follows. When businesses generate less waste overall, they’re better positioned to succeed with organics sorting and contamination reduction.
Learning the Story of Each Site
No two Alameda businesses or multifamily properties are the same, which is why the technical assistance process starts with detailed, personalized assessments. During walk‑throughs, staff observe on‑site operations, check container conditions, review service levels, and look closely at sorting practices for each stream.
Sometimes the root cause is simple, like an indoor food scraps bin placed too far from prep stations for kitchen staff to use consistently. Other times, it’s more systemic, such as long‑standing misconceptions that recycling and composting are a farce, or that there is no infrastructure for the organics collection program at all. No matter the challenge, the assessment creates a roadmap for implementing a successful organics program that fits your business or multifamily property’s needs.
Giving People the Tools to Do the Right Thing
Even the most motivated tenants or employees can’t participate successfully in an organics program without the right tools in hand. That’s why the City of Alameda, in partnership with StopWaste and Alameda County Industries, has equipped outreach staff with the necessary tools to provide to businesses free of charge. Tools include:
During site visits, SCS professionals often recommend or provide interior green Slim Jim for high‑traffic hallways, kitchens, and break rooms, to support the collection of organic waste. Making participation in recycling and organics collection programs convenient is crucial to diverting waste from landfill disposal.
At Alameda multifamily properties, the team distributes organics pails and recycling totes directly to residents through door‑to‑door outreach, fostering connections between tenants and the program’s goals.
Right‑Sizing Services to Support Success
Pairing indoor infrastructure changes with the right‑sizing of exterior waste containers is essential for effective material diversion. In many cases, diversion levels are affected by service configurations that have historically favored excess landfill capacity over recycling and organics. These imbalances often result in under‑sized diversion containers, leading to overflow and increased recyclable and compostable material headed to landfill. Right‑sizing service levels provides a collection system that aligns with actual waste generation. When paired with an indoor three-stream collection system and proper sorting education, right‑sized exterior service levels remove barriers to diversion and make correct sorting the default.
Education That Meets People Where They Are
The approach applied in the City of Alameda emphasizes personal, hands‑on engagement. SCS regularly hosts on-site training for employees, managers, and tenants to discuss the new organics infrastructure, proper sorting behaviors, and how their everyday actions influence the program’s success. Training, available in multiple languages, is tailored to the audience: kitchen staff receive practical guidance on handling food scraps, janitorial teams receive instructions on collection and disposal operations, and residents learn through friendly, door‑to‑door conversations. These interactions often include materials such as signage, decals, “What Goes Where” brochures, and food-scrap containers that make sorting easier long after the training ends.
Finding Solutions to Contamination
In busy commercial districts, contamination challenges often come down to convenience and speed. It’s easier, for example, to bag food scraps in plastic to keep things tidy, but that plastic contaminates the organics stream. SCS’s approach to working with businesses is to find alternatives that fit their workflow while remaining compliant. At coffee shops and restaurants throughout the area, staff gradually shifted away from trashing organic waste after personalized training and follow-up visits. For many, the change was reinforced by rethinking indoor bin placement or adding a dedicated organics bin right where the staff needed it.
The City of Alameda’s progress demonstrates how tailored technical assistance transforms organics programs from compliance-driven efforts into sustained partnerships. SCS Engineers combines on‑site expertise, right‑sizing, and ongoing support to help communities achieve lasting diversion outcomes.
Meet our Author: Laura N. Johnson is a senior project professional at SCS Engineers, based in Pleasanton, California. In her role, she serves as a project manager. She delivers organic-focused technical assistance projects for public agencies, guiding jurisdictions through the planning, implementation, and evaluation of organic waste recycling and waste reduction programs. Laura specializes in California regulatory compliance, including SB 1383, and oversees multidisciplinary teams supporting waste characterization studies, outreach and education efforts, and data-driven assessments to improve diversion and compliance outcomes. She brings extensive experience managing complex projects for cities and counties across California and the Pacific Northwest, with a focus on practical, actionable solutions tailored to local needs.
Additional Zero Waste Resources:
Join SCS Engineers at the ISWA 2025 World Congress & Exhibition, taking place October 27-29 in Buenos Aires, Argentina. This global event, declared of National Tourist Interest by the Secretary of Tourism, Environment, and Sports of Argentina, brings together industry leaders, policymakers, scientists, and young professionals to drive innovation in waste management and the circular economy.
Join President James Law, Vice Chair of the Landfill Working Group, Deji Fawole, along with Alex Stege, a landfill gas modeling expert.
Quinn Bernier, Brandon King, and Tecsan will present on a collaborative landfill gas design for the Norte IIID Landfill in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
Each industrial revolution has shaped the way we handle waste—what will be the defining waste challenge of the 4th Industrial Revolution? Discover how the Latin America and Caribbean region is tackling these challenges and advancing circular economy solutions.
Be part of the conversation at the ISWA 2025 World Congress & Exhibition. Connect with SCS Engineers as we explore cutting-edge strategies for sustainable resource management and a zero-waste future. See you in Buenos Aires!
Sonya Betker is a zero waste and sustainability expert who brings decades of experience to SCS. Betker is a TRUE Advisor and a Sustainable Excellence Associate supporting her clients in sustainable resource management and waste reduction practices that minimize waste by reusing as many products as possible.
Betker’s expertise comes from leading regional, national, and global sustainability and circular economy programs for public and private clients by taking a holistic approach to lead and develop strategic programs. She is particularly proficient at maximizing partnerships for more efficient sustainability programs. Much of her experience has been in business management and brokering before her transition to environmental consulting.
Creating connections between stakeholders and excellent communication has been a constant throughout her career. These traits are especially valuable in zero waste and sustainability planning because they involve multiple stakeholders, including the public.
“Sonya brings field experience and a proven track record driving sustainability, building the business case highlighting potential revenue gains and cost savings with buy-in to sustainability,” states Betsy Powers, vice president and project director. “That provides more successful paths to circular systems, and our clients appreciate our sensitivity to costs.”
Betker’s background includes a B.S. in Business Management – Sustainability from the University of Wisconsin–Stout and over ten professional affiliations and certifications. She has a deep understanding of the most current sustainability issues, tools, and techniques and can communicate sustainability topics to diverse audiences. She can accurately assess sustainability risks and opportunities in an organization, community, or industry.
Betker is an author recognized in industry publications for her article “The future relationship of sustainability and traditional waste and recycling may be a key piece in solving our waste puzzle,” and featured in “Women in Waste” for her leadership skills.
“I’ve learned to look at the big picture of waste and recycling,” Betker said. “I like to look for commodities within markets and help with that circularity—reframing waste as a resource. Stopping or reusing food waste is a particularly rewarding area for many municipalities and businesses.”
Additional Resources:
Today’s blog highlights successful K-12 recycling education programs in Wisconsin’s green schools that walk the walk in teaching kids and their parents important lessons about sustainability and the environment. Wisconsin’s Green Schools Webinar entitled “Re-imagine, Re-design & Re-cycle: School Waste Collection Systems That Work!” is taking advantage of the Carton Council funding to further zero waste in schools. The webinar is free to attend and open to everyone, with content designed specifically for K12 champions leading recycling programs for their school or district.
As schools set their sights on zero waste goals and seek to shift as much material from the trash to recycling and composting streams, they need an efficient material management system that is easy to use for students and staff alike and is sustainable to operate. Attendees of this webinar will hear directly from three different school districts about their recent innovations in bin design, construction, and placement.
The event includes students building receptacles and hallway recycling programs that are helping to maintain one district’s classroom eating program. The programs are re-imagining unique systems for collecting valuable items such as milk carton material.
Panelists include Brittney Albin, Sustainability Coordinator for Lincoln Public Schools; Chris Jimieson of SCS Engineers and a parent recycling advocate; and Madison Metropolitan School District’s Jeremy Drake, a Principal at Strategy Zero Waste Solutions.
Mar 22, 2023, 04:00 PM in Eastern Time (US and Canada)
The Carton Council will award $2,000 each to 25 communities that improve their resident education, with special attention paid to food and beverage cartons. Additionally, there will be first, second, and third-place prizes to recognize winners who provide outstanding communications and marketing efforts. 1st place will receive an additional $3,000, 2nd place an additional $2,000, and 3rd place an additional $1,000. More information about how communities can participate is here.
Recycling Tips and Resources for schools, parents, and municipalities:
Do you really need to use a drinking straw? With most beverages, probably not! Make this one change and help America reduce the amount of plastic going into our landfills.
Click to learn more about Sustainable Materials Management.
Many schools and school districts are prioritizing a shift toward zero waste and sustainability. However, learning to manage material resources on-site in a more sustainable manner presents operational and monetary challenges. Learn the benefits and steps to plan a financially sustainable program from Tracie Bills of SCS Engineers.
Tracie creates realistic approaches which allow for flexibility while maneuvering the unique challenges that occur. She takes you step-by-step through building a successful program and refers to established efforts such as in the City of San Jose that already have established zero waste programs in their schools.
Read the article by clicking here.
Setting up a school zero waste program takes time, patience, excellent collaboration and communication, and a team that wants to achieve the same goal of zero waste. Tracie Bills recommends a realistic approach in her article. She provides examples and describes how a consulting firms, such as SCS Engineers, assist schools without materials management programs to launch zero waste programs.
Building a successful program does not happen overnight, but you can do it!
Tracie Onstad Bills is SCS Engineers Northern California Director of Sustainable Materials Management. She has over 20 years of materials management experience, including working for a hauler, a county government, and a nonprofit, and over 12 years of experience with materials management consulting firms. She has provided commercial sector materials flow assessments; organics processing research and analysis; waste characterization studies; and recycling, organics, and waste management technical assistance to government agencies, schools, multi-family dwellings, and businesses. Ms. Bills has an environmental science degree from San Jose State and is an instructor for the SWANA Zero Waste certification program.
Hundreds of closed landfills in Wisconsin are required to perform groundwater monitoring and reporting. Typically, the frequency of monitoring, size of the monitoring well arrays, and the list of required parameters, was established many years ago as part of the landfill operating permit or closure plan approval. There is a potential to reduce, or terminate landfill monitoring when groundwater quality improvements are documented. WDNR guidance entitled “Reducing or Terminating Groundwater Monitoring at Solid Waste Landfills,” (PUB-WA 1013) provides instructions for requesting reductions to monitoring requirements.
Learn about new revisions to the WDNR guidance, developed with input from the WDNR’s Waste and Materials Management Study Group, which are intended to improve both the range of options for monitoring reductions and the process for requesting reductions. In addition to providing procedures for reduction in monitoring frequency, new revisions to the guidance include procedures for requesting reductions to the required number of monitoring wells and parameters. The revised guidance also provides instructions for communicating monitoring reduction requests to the WDNR review hydrogeologists.
Marc Rogoff sees unprecedented factors in play as “The Perfect Storm”—the banning of solid waste materials and imposing an almost unreachable contamination standard on bales entering China.
Read his recent article to get started on a solution relevant in your region and return again to follow our series of articles on what you can do to continue supporting or changing your program.
The article covers association actions, regional impacts, funding, and more.
National Waste and Recycling Association is sponsoring a FREE 90-minute webinar on December 6 at 3:00 pm ET. The webinar is highlighting the programs, strategies, and best practices of their six 2017 Recycling Award Winners.
The recipients will describe their unique blend of technologies, outreach, and program management that made a difference in their communities. The audience will have a chance to ask questions and find out how to implement these innovative ideas into their own operations and businesses.
Agenda:
More Solid Waste Management resources and success stories here.
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