Recology Careers, Benefits, Review

Our Vision: A World Without Waste

The Recology mission represents a fundamental shift from traditional waste management to resource recovery. We seek to eliminate waste by developing and discovering sustainable resource recovery practices that can be implemented globally.

Our Mission: Building Exceptional Resource Ecosystems

This begins by creating a resource ecosystem – one that both protects the environment and sustains the local community. It’s a ‘closed loop’ ecosystem that makes it possible for the communities Recology serves to achieve high landfill diversion and meet sustainability goals.

Collection – Identify the needs of the community and propose and implement programs to collect and process materials.
Recovery – Design sorting strategies, deploy a three-bin system, and establish outreach and education programs.
Processing – Build infrastructure that includes machinery and technologies to extract and sort raw materials.
Marketing & Commodities – Ensure that recycled commodities are sold to manufacturers that will create further recyclable consumer goods.

Over 100 Years of Service

We’ve been recycling long before there was even an industry for it. Our founders immigrated to San Francisco in the mid 1800’s looking for opportunity and they eventually found work doing what no one else wanted to do – picking up other people’s garbage.

They called themselves scavengers – in fact, the Recology Sunset Scavenger company name is a nod to these same founders. The original scavengers sorted through trash to find what was salvageable by rewashing, repackaging, and selling bottles, and by sorting and separating rags and papers from other refuse materials. Little did they know that they were creating a foundation for our current business model today.

To this day, many of our employees are descendants of our Italian founders.

Key Milestones

By 1921, the San Francisco scavengers became an organized business, along with other small collectors in the area. Two major companies emerged – Scavenger’s Protective Association and Sunset Scavenger Company. Both companies were given exclusive refuse collection licenses for the City of San Francisco. These licenses are still held today.

In 1935, the two collection companies formed Sanitary Fill Company (today known as Recology San Francisco), the first of a number of jointly owned subsidiaries. Sanitary Fill Company’s charter was to develop disposal capacity for the increasingly large amount of refuse that was overwhelming the City. Throughout the 1940s and 1950s, both San Francisco collection companies grew and expanded their services to keep pace with San Francisco’s growth.

In 1965, as part of a modernization program, Scavenger’s Protective Association changed its name to Golden Gate Disposal & Recycling Company. Sunset continued to operate from a site that had previously been a landfill near the San Francisco/San Mateo County line.

In 1983, with aim toward expansion, the company – called Golden Gate Disposal – was reorganized as Norcal Solid Waste Systems.

In 1986, Norcal was sold to its 570 employees and their Employee Stock Ownership Plan (ESOP) to ensure Norcal’s independence.

In 1987, Norcal purchased Envirocal (formerly Sunset Scavenger). With this merger, Norcal became one of the nation’s 10 largest 100%-employee-owned companies, with a substantial minority representation among its shareholders.

In 2009, Norcal Waste Systems changed its name to Recology Inc. to reflect its commitment to sustainable practices.

As of 2016, Recology employee owners proudly serve 127 communities throughout California, Oregon, Washington, and Nevada.

Working at Recology

Recology is an integrated resource recovery company providing materials collection, processing, commodity sales, and outreach and education to customers throughout California, Oregon, and Washington. Recology finds new ways to process and reuse what was once considered waste, collecting and recovering recyclables to be re-purposed into new products. Recology employs over 3,600 community members to work at over 60 offices and facilities.  We live by the following terms to make sure everyone at Recology GROWs:

Giving back to our communities and our environment by volunteering time and resources.

Recovering resources to achieve their best and highest use.

Owning a company that does the right things for the right reasons, ensuring that our actions benefit the company, the communities we serve, and our environment.

Working together to develop camaraderie & facilitate collaboration; we get the job done by demonstrating an inclusive attitude that values different backgrounds and ideas.

Employee Ownership Culture

Photo of employeesAs the largest 100% employee owned company in the resource recovery industry, Recology has a unique workplace culture that guides how it supports employees, interacts with customers, services its communities, and cares for the environment.

Recology has a long history of employee ownership, with each employee owning one share of stock when the company started in 1919. In 1986 and 1987, the preceding companies of Recology merged in a series of transactions that placed ownership in the hands of the Recology Employee Stock Ownership Plan (ESOP).  In addition to providing an ownership interest in the company, the ESOP provides employees with a supplemental retirement plan.

As a 100% employee owned company, Recology understands that employees’ individual and collective hard work and dedication will lead directly to the success of the company in the long term.

GROW with us!

It takes a team of dedicated people to create positive change. Our teams are continuously working to find solutions to global waste issues – and they’re nothing short of dedicated. Think you’re a fit? Let us know!