Tumwater recycled a third of its solid waste in 2022, report says

According to Tumwater's latest sustainability report, the percentage of solid waste from the city’s operations that was recycled has increased to 33% in 2022. The report shows an improvement from 2021, when only 19% of solid waste was recycled or composted.

Presented to the city council on September 12, the report stated that the city is estimated to have produced 428,169 pounds of solid waste in 2022, which was lower than the 438,792 pounds of solid waste collected in 2021. The data did not include solid waste produced at city parks and collected in street sweeping activities.

Sixteen percent of these solid waste were glass while 7% were cardboard, both of which underwent recycling. Four percent were food waste which was then composted.

Another 6% of the waste was collected and processed through single-stream recycling, a process in which solid waste is delivered to recycling centers pre-sorted by residents or businesses.

LeMay Pacific Disposal provided these estimations based on container sizes and pickup frequency. As the data provided were only estimates, the latest sustainability report recommends a formal waste audit of city operations.

The report states that the city aims to reduce city operations’ solid waste levels during 2021 by 10% before 2030. Since 2021, generated solid waste has so far been reduced by 2.4%.