Allied Waste Interview

On April 15, Shawny and Sky went to the Allied Waste facility to interview the people in the office about their job and interaction with Saint Mary’s College. Allied Waste serves counties around the East Bay and is actively pursuing waste in all its forms. They pick up garbage, recycling, green waste (aka yard waste), as well as pre-consumer food waste. Pre-consumer food waste is food waste that was not involved in the production of food and is discarded prior to being cooked. This includes the unusable/unedible parts of fruits and vegetables.

At allied waste they no longer refer to waste as trash, but instead refer to it as “commodities.” The recycling is sorted and then re-used to form new goods. Some of the yard waste is diverted to a compost facility, while the rest is used to cover the landfill. The pre-consumer food waste is then sent to the biodigester in Oakland which produces electricity.

Matt Carroll, the head of Sodexho, said that Saint Mary’s College was a pilot project to see how feasible it would be for institutions to give pre-consumer waste to Allied Waste. The waste is then brought to a biodigester in Oakland. Saint Mary’s supplies Allied Waste a 1 yard container once a week. In total, Allied Waste supplies the biodigester 10 tons per week.