Tacoma Sustainable Materials Management Plan

The City of Tacoma has set an ambitious goal to divert more than 70% of its waste from landfills by 2028. Herrera worked with the City in developing a Sustainable Materials Management Plan to reach this target. The Plan looks at a variety of programmatic, operations, regulatory, and capital investment options that will increase waste diversion. We helped develop the range of options for consideration by the City, and for each option, researched and estimated marginal recycling rate estimates, and capital and operating cost estimates. We worked with the team to combine options into four distinct scenarios (e.g., education, regulation, processing), then estimated diversion through its recycling potential assessment model for each scenario. Finally, we developed a lifecycle cost model to estimate potential cost implications for the City and its ratepayers. We are excited to see this plan implemented over the coming years and to be part of Tacoma’s sustainability team.