Client: Snohomish County, WA

Cascadia has worked with Snohomish County since 2008 to recruit schools and food-generating businesses to participate in a food scrap recycling program, with the intent of decreasing the amount of compostable material entering the county’s waste stream. Recruitment focused on interested schools and on businesses that had the potential to divert food waste, such as restaurants, chain grocery stores, hotels, hospitals, retirement homes, strip mall property managers, and the Snohomish County Corrections Facility. For each interested entity, Cascadia conducted on-site meetings and walkthroughs to determine current waste set-up and capacity, used a Cascadia-developed calculator tool to estimate tonnage diversion and cost savings, provided recommendations, and helped implement the program through training and follow-up. Results include initiating food scrap collection service with over 70 businesses and 12 schools.