GreenWaste marks 40 years of resource recovery innovation with 2025 Sustainability Report

The California company announced the release of its 2025 Sustainability Report, which spotlights the 1.1 million tons of materials that GreenWaste’s industry-leading operations recovered from the waste stream last year.

SAN JOSE, CA, May 21, 2026 — GreenWaste®, California’s premier collections and resource recovery company, announced today the release of its 2025 Sustainability Report. The annual report provides key insights and detailed metrics about the company’s resource recovery operations, governance, health and safety programs, emissions tracking, policy compliance and planning, community impact, and more. GreenWaste recovered more than 1.1 million tons of material through its network of processing facilities and collection routes in 2025, the company’s fortieth year serving California communities.

“At GreenWaste, we recognize that circularity depends on collaboration between all stakeholders in the supply chain,” said Clete Elms, GreenWaste’s Chief Executive Officer. “Since 1985, this company has been on the leading-edge of innovative recovery solutions, and I’m proud to showcase some of the many ways we continue to collaborate with communities, government, and industry to power the transition to a circular society.”

In 2025, GreenWaste’s single-stream Material Recovery Facility (MRF) was recognized by Recycling Today as 5^th largest in North America. The company operates two distinct MRFs in San Jose to process single-stream recyclables and Municipal Solid Waste.

Equipped with cutting-edge technology and operated by highly skilled team members, the facilities are a cornerstone of the company’s sustainability achievements. GreenWaste’s Municipal Solid Waste MRF is uniquely designed to sort organic materials, such as food, from the waste stream. In 2025, the MRF team recovered 148,000 tons of food waste from municipal customers’ trash – otherwise headed directly to landfill – and redirected it to GreenWaste’s composting facility in Gilroy, CA, to be turned into compost for use by local agriculture and landscapers.

The report also tracks the lifecycle of recovered materials beyond GreenWaste’s operations, highlighting key U.S.-basd partner facilities that process materials such as glass, mixed paper, and plastics. These downstream recovery partners further process recovered materials to create new recycled products. For many of GreenWaste’s 330,000 customers, visibility into where their waste goes is increasingly valuable information.   

“In this report, we’re sharing the impacts of what GreenWaste does best – not only the direct resource recovery within our operations, but also how we support recovery across the economy by building relationships with end-market partners and sustainability leaders,” said Claire Lindstadt, ESG Specialist and lead author on the report.

2025 was a year of growth and level-setting for GreenWaste’s sustainability program. The company invested heavily in operational improvements across all functions, including sustainability. New executive leadership implemented key changes to prioritize data-driven decision-making, especially in safety, efficiency, and environmental impact. Informed by a materiality assessment, the company updated its sustainability strategy, which included realignment with the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals and refining internal procedures to track metrics like diversion rates, emissions, and renewable energy production with even more granularity.

“As a result of 2025’s strategic investments in people and processes, we enter 2026 positioned to accelerate growth, expand into new markets, and deliver on critical sustainability commitments for our customers and communities,” said Morgan Oblinsky, Vice President of Strategy.

Read the report.

GreenWaste will follow this release with the publication of their 2025 GRI Index and a Spanish translation of this report.

Key takeaways from the report include:

• Operations:
  • San Jose Material Recovery Facility Ranked 5^th largest MRF in North America by Recycling Today
  • Gold Status award in Construction & Demolition Recycling Association (CDRA) Best Practices in Safety
• Resource recovery:
  • 1.1 million tons of materials recovered by GreenWaste
    • 500,004 tons of organics
    • 49,022 tons of metals
    • 17,686 tons of plastics
    • 30,053 tons of glass
• Sustainability:
  • 58% of electricity sourced from renewables
  • 60+ emerging environmental risks proactively mitigated
  • Updated alignment with U.N. Sustainable Development Goals
• People:
  • 42 internal promotions
  • Average tenure of 8.8 years
• Collaborations:
  • Partnerships with Stanford Health and Stanford University’s mechanical engineering program
  • Downstream processor partnerships in California and across the United States
  • Updated charitable giving and sponsorships framework

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About GreenWaste:

GreenWaste’s mission is to focus on innovation, people, and commitment to be green first to revolutionize how we transform the world’s waste. GreenWaste specializes in the collection and processing of residential and commercial solid waste, recyclable materials, organic materials and construction and demolition debris. GreenWaste’s current and predecessor companies have been innovation pioneers in the recycling industry for four decades. For more information about GreenWaste, visit: www.greenwaste.com.

Media Contact: Sarah Cafasso, news@greenwaste.com