Re+ Community Panel – King County Solid Waste Division
Community Advisory Group
Re+ is a King County Solid Waste Division (SWD) initiative to reduce waste going to the landfill. Our team convened a 12-person community panel made up of members with a passion for environmental justice, equity, and social justice, and lived experience with the impacts of climate change.
Recruitment
We created a recruitment process that acknowledged the value of lived experience and framed the panel as an opportunity for community members to channel their strengths into action. We gathered over 50 applications from community members interested in the panel.
Facilitation
We worked with subject matter experts to identify what topics the panel’s input may inform and we developed meeting content and activities that were relevant and accessible to the panel. Our team helped the panel develop a charter that established the group’s values, which included transparency, anti-racism, and celebrating different identities and experiences as strengths. Panel members consistently reported that they felt comfortable, welcome, and heard in meetings.
Documenting Reccomendations
Our team designed a process to capture and track recommendations. After each meeting, we separated actionable ideas from general commentary and documented it in a dashboard, where subject matter experts then considered the feasibility of each recommendation and documented updates. Over the course of three years, the panel generated over 80 actionable recommendations for over 10 waste prevention programs.
