Laura Anthony is a 2nd generation zero waste community organizer. Major: Women's Studies Minor: Communications & Master's in Library and Information Management. In 2007, helped establish a local nonprofit organization called Zero Waste San Diego. Zero Waste Consultant with Richard Anthony Associates. She has implemented several beverage container recycling programs in schools throughout Southern California. Helped put into action an school lunch recycling program throughout the County of San Diego diverting over half of each schools waste by volume per day.

Making the Case for School Lunch Recycling Programs
The County of San Diego recently set a goal of 75% diversion by 2025. Over the past few years, Richard Anthony Associates and Zero Waste San Diego have created and implemented school recycling throughout the unincorporated San Diego County and are not putting School Lunch Recycling Programs into practice. Laura will go into detail on how they approached the district, the schools, and staff to incorporate a sorting system at each lunch period in order to cut the volume of waste in half. Equipment, signage and incentive programs were created with the help of hauler permit fees and grants from the Carton Council.

Pronouns she/her/her/they/them/theirs.

Kiana is a Transition teacher at Mount Miguel High School in Spring Valley, CA, the Traditional Territory of the Kumeyaay people. She recently was a panel facilitator for Educators for Anti-Racism Special Education Session as well as a co-emcee for Educators for Anti-Racism in Early Childhood Education Session. She believes that social justice and environmental justice are dependent on one another which is why she is participating in the Leveraging Resources to Expand School Recycling Countywide Presentation.

Tyla Montgomery Soylu provides planning, permitting, design and technical support for resource management projects. She is responsible for implementation of recycling, food recovery and organics programs at schools and businesses in Unincorporated areas under the County of San Diego's As-Needed Recycling contracts as well as the City of Carlsbad. She is a registered Civil Engineer in CA and NV and earned her BS in Environmental Engineering from SDSU. Tyla serves on the Board of Directors for the non-profit organization, Inika Small Earth.

Organics and Food Recovery at Schools
The County of San Diego recently set a goal of 75% diversion by 2025. Organic materials can reach up to 50% of a school's waste stream, when little or no action to divert the material is put into action. Tyla will discuss the County of San Diego's initiative, "Food, Too Good to Waste!" in instilling the highest and best use of recovered food as well as creating onsite composting at school campuses. She will also mention the importance of creating relationships with food recovery partners such as animal sanctuaries' and community food banks. These provide schools various avenues in which help divert organics to feed the people first, animals and then the soil.

Debbi has worked in the carton recycling industry for over 20 years. During that time she assisted both municipalities and schools in adding gabletop and aseptic cartons to their recycling programs. For the past 10 years she has been the school recycling coordinator for the Carton Council, a trade association comprised of carton manufacturers with the goal of reducing the impact of their package on the environment by expanding recycling programs across the country and continuously improving their environmental performance. Her personal goal is to have every milk and juice carton generated by schools recycled. Every carton counts.