Support Clean Composting in Washington State

The Washington Department of Ecology is developing new rules to address contamination at organics management facilities. The legislative goal for the rules was to strengthen compost operations and set reasonable standards for facilities using depackaging as a decontamination tool. 

But Ecology’s newly released draft rules miss the mark. Instead of setting clear depackaging standards and supporting the compost industry, the current WAC 173-350 Organics Rule Revision Draft creates new restrictions on compost facilities and does not hold other organics management technologies accountable for  environmental outcomes.

The USCC and Washington Stakeholders are concerned because the proposed rules:

• Contain no meaningful depackaging standards: unlike Vermont’s model, which requires source separation of easily depackaged food and places reasonable limits on what can be processed.
• Undermine source separation, the foundation of Washington’s solid waste system, by effectively exempting grocery stores from sorting their recyclables, food waste, and garbage.
• Reinterpret key state definitions, including “organic materials,” “source separation,” and ownership of solid waste—in ways that contradict existing statute and case law.
• Impose a 2% contamination limit on compost facility feedstocks, with no equivalent inbound or recovery standard for other types of facilities accepting food waste.
• Add new layers of testing, reporting, and compliance requirements that will drive up costs and slow down progress on composting—even as more organics are landfilled.

In short, Ecology’s proposal flips the intent of the law: it lets high-contamination depackaging operations expand while tightening restrictions on proven composting systems. If adopted, these rules will make it harder and costlier to run compost facilities, reduce organics recycling rates, and could set a damaging precedent for other states.

The DEC is taking public comment on the current draft, updated October 2025, until 11:50 PM (PST) on November 21, 2025. You can submit through their online Public Comment Form. The USCC has drafted a sample comment that you can utilize to submit your own comment to the WA Department of Ecology through their Public Comment Form. You may copy and paste the text directly, edit the sample text, or submit your own original comment.

Why should all USCC Members be concerned with rulemaking in Washington State?

Washington State’s Organics Management Laws were enacted with the intent to divert more material from landfills, support composting infrastructure, and grow a sustainable circular economy for organic materials, including alternate processing pathways. However, the Department of Ecology’s current rulemaking draft, instead of supporting the compost industry with workable contamination requirements, the proposal creates new restrictions on compost facilities and does not hold other organics management technologies accountable for environmental outcomes.

We have seen the negative impact on the composting and recycling industries in states such as Maine, Massachusetts, and Vermont when non-source-separated organics collection invited large generators (groceries, food distributors, etc.) to toss ALL inedible food waste, including previously source-separated organics, into the same dumpsters. This has forced advocates in Vermont to push for what has been a lengthy process in the State of Vermont to reaffirm the intent of its landmark source-separated organics law, yet many composters never recovered, leaving a deficit of compost for healthy soils in that state. See this article in Waste Dive to learn more about how this scenario is playing out in Vermont. The USCC is concerned that the “green” State of Washington could face similar impacts on its robust and developed compost industry, and healthy soil policies needing quality compost.

All composters nationwide should be concerned when laws that don't support source separation are considered. Please help us insist that fair and appropriate levels of inbound contamination are fairly set for the composting industry and other organic material processors in Washington while maintaining the intent to source-separate unpackaged and easily recycled organics for composting.