"Recycling Is Like Third Grade"

Bio:

Since 1996, Rodd Pemble has been the Recycling Manager for Sanitary Service Company, Inc. (SSC) in Bellingham, WA., managing recycling programs for over 45,000 residential, commercial, and institutional customers.  Rodd has developed new SSC programs for yard waste, construction materials, plastic film, food waste and food-soiled paper, and electronics.  SSC’s award-winning Food To Flowers! school composting program now serves an estimated 25,000 students daily from kindergarden through university level.  Rodd has presented at numerous state, regional, and national conferences on a variety of waste reduction and recycling topics. 

Rodd worked at RE Sources For Sustainable Communities from 1991-96 as a classroom educator, and then as the RE Sources director of the Commercial Waste Evaluation Service, on a contract with Whatcom County.  Over five years, Rodd provided on site technical assistance in waste prevention, reuse, and recycling to several thousand local businesses, government agencies, and public institutions including the City of Bellingham, Whatcom County, Western WA University, Bellingham Technical College, Whatcom Community College, and most school districts and private schools in Whatcom County.

He has served on the Board of Trustees of the WA State Refuse & Recycling Association (WRRA) since 2009.  Rodd is the chair of the Built Green Board of the Building Industry Association of Whatcom County, and since 2009 has been the chair of the Green Team for the annual Ski To Sea Festival.  He served as a founding member of the board of the Sustainable Recreation Association.  In 2014, he joined the board of RE Sources for Sustainable Communities, where he serves on the Philanthropy Committee.

Rodd is a graduate of The Evergreen State College (BA, 1983), the University of Tennessee - Knoxville (1986, Secondary Teaching Certificate) and

University of Tennessee - Chattanooga (1989, MS Science Education).  He has been active in local community affairs, volunteering on all of the Bellingham Greenways campaigns, and continues today as a volunteer trail builder with the Whatcom Mountain Bike Coalition. 

He served as president of the Birchwood Neighborhood Association from 1996-2002, as well as a founding member of the board of the Oeser Cedar Clean-up Coalition during the Superfund process on that Birchwood Neighborhood site, and continues to participate in neighborhood affairs. 

Rodd is an avid road and mountain biker, bicycling to work daily for 17 years, and served on the board of the Mt Baker Bicycle Club for several years.  He is married and lives in the Birchwood Neighborhood (since 1995) with his wife and two teenage daughters.

Overview:

Bellingham and Whatcom County are leaders nationally in recycling and waste reduction, from homes to refineries.  Explore the impacts of this simple activity,and the enormous potential still waiting for our citizens, businesses, and institutions to reach for a more sustainable economy and society.