For decades, Zero Waste Marin, a waste management organization, has worked with county leaders across Marin to reduce waste and combat climate change. In 2016, they pledged to reach zero waste in Marin County by 2025 to comply with a series of bills passed by California legislation. However, although it is four months into the new year, Zero Waste Marin has not yet achieved this goal.
Zero Waste Marin, established in 1996, aims to uphold California’s regulations regarding waste management and reach consistency regarding recycling and composting throughout Marin County. According to Ross Town Manager and Zero Waste Marin board member Christa Johnson, the purpose of Zero Waste Marin is to reduce country-wide waste.
“Zero Waste Marin is a joint powers authority that seeks to reduce waste that’s going to the landfill and seeks to properly dispose of waste, such as household hazardous waste,” Johnson said.
The organization defines zero waste as a 95 percent diversion of waste from landfills through recycling and composting. Zero Waste Marin had set the goal of achieving zero waste by 2025 in response to multiple bills passed by the California legislature.
California Senate Bill (SB) 1383, known as California’s Short-Lived Climate Pollutant Strategy, had a large influence in setting this goal. Passed in 2016, this bill aims to reduce the amount of landfilled food and other organic waste, therefore reducing methane released from landfill decomposition. SB 1383 set a goal of diverting 75 percent of organics in California from landfills by 2025. Based on this bill and other similar legislation, Zero Waste Marin set their own goal of achieving zero waste by 2025.
To reach zero waste by 2025, Zero Waste Marin implemented many strategies, including education at local elementary and middle schools about sorting trash correctly; working with property managers to ensure access to compost and recycling in apartment buildings; business outreach such as social media and newsletters in collaboration with Marin towns; and free community programming to make recycling and composting easier.
“We have to figure out ways to educate people and make it easy so that they participate in this program because we’re not going to get to zero waste without it,” Johnson said.
Despite these various approaches, as of April 2025, the organization has not met this goal. Zero Waste Marin Senior Planner Casey Fritz explained that unexpected issues with public participation prevented the organization from reaching zero waste.
“I think there were just problems encountered that we didn’t anticipate,” Fritz said. “It’s hard to control what people buy; we can’t go to every single resident of Marin and say, ‘Don’t buy anything that’s not recyclable. Don’t buy anything that’s not compostable.’ And so there’s a little bit of consumer behavior that’s hard to control.”
Although Zero Waste Marin has yet to report the final data, Fritz estimates that 65 percent of Marin waste has successfully been diverted from landfills through composting and recycling. This leaves some room to grow, and Zero Waste Marin looks to expand upon these numbers in the next few years.
“We’re still working hard to reduce waste and make that accessible to people, but the stated goal of zero waste by 2025 is just something that is not realistic at this point,” Fritz said.
In 2022, California legislators passed SB 54, the Plastic Pollution Prevention and Packaging Producer Responsibility Act, which holds producers responsible for ensuring that packaging and plastic foodware sold in California are either compostable or recyclable. Zero Waste Marin hopes that this bill will address the root of plastic waste issues and contribute to the ultimate goal of zero waste.
“If I tell you not to buy your favorite shampoo because it’s in an unrecyclable package, you’re probably going to be like, ‘I think not,’ right? Most people are not going to make that sacrifice. So redesigning at the top so that what we’re getting is actually recyclable is going to be huge,” Fritz said.
Zero Waste Marin is also applying other strategies as they work towards zero waste, zeroing in on the “reduce and reuse” components of waste reduction in addition to recycling and composting. They hope to expand their education programs to reach high schools soon, and they have recently begun organizing repair fairs and clothing swaps as well.
“We just started offering repair fairs, where community members can bring in a common household item that broke, like maybe a lamp or a toaster, or they have a rip in their favorite shirt, and their repair coaches will teach them about fixing the item for free. So they can leave with a fixed item and more knowledge on fixing things that are still useful. So again, that’s sort of that reuse component of ‘this item still has life’,” Fritz said.
Ultimately, the goals of Zero Waste Marin, SB 1383, and SB 54 are aligned: reduce waste to reduce the effects of climate change. According to the SB 1383 government page, the bill will “fight climate change by recycling organic waste.” Archie Williams junior, Georgia Conway believes that climate change is a critical issue, and waste management is a valuable tool to combat it.
“[Recycling and composting] is important because it’s so easy…it’s so simple that we just should. Mitigating the effects of climate change in any way possible should be done,” Georgia said.
There are many ways to support Zero Waste Marin’s efforts to reduce waste in Marin; simply understanding how to compost and recycle properly is a valuable contribution. Community members can bring any items in need of repair to the next repair fair, which will be Saturday, May 31, 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. at 50 Canal St, San Rafael.
