Patty Garbarino Receives the John P. Moscone Award for Lifetime Achievement

North Bay’s local Patty Garbarino, President of Marin Sanitary Service, Marin Recycling and Marin Resource Recovery Center, Board Member of Sonoma County Resource Recovery, and Napa Recycling and Waste Services was honored to receive the John P. Moscone Award for “long-term exemplary commitment and dedicated service to the waste industry” by the Resource Recovery Coalition of California (RRCC) at their annual Convention.

Long a leader in innovation of the waste industry, Ms. Garbarino began her career at Marin Sanitary in 1987, following in the footsteps of her father, Joe Garbarino. Driven by her commitment to a healthier more sustainable planet, Ms. Garbarino has made reducing landfill waste by increasing resource recovery and recycling her chief priority. Marin County has achieved the highest recycling rate in the state for over two decades. Among her many accomplishments are launching a food waste to energy anaerobic digestion facility (F2E) with the Central Marin Sanitation Agency 10 years ahead of anyone else and before any mandatory legislation, working to establish the County’s first and only permanent biomass (wood scraps) to hydrogen and electricity facility, establishing the first Household Hazardous Waste Facility, a public education program and an Environmental Classroom.

“I am utterly surprised by and very grateful for this award,” said Ms. Garbarino. “It has been my lifelong passion and honor to work on reducing waste going to landfills across our state, and I hope to set the standard for our nation. As we experience soaring temperatures across this country, and thousands dying around the world, the urgency and gravity to lower our emissions could not be more clear. But as I and my colleagues have shown, it is also an opportunity. We have proven that what is good for the environment can also be good for our customers and for business.”

Ms. Garbarino has been instrumental in the passage of legislation to advance recycling and other sustainable practices at the state level, including AB 939, which mandates 50 percent diversion from landfill, SB 54, which shifts the burden of plastic waste reduction from consumers to producers and AB 1333, a legislative effort, alongside the Teamsters Union, that protected lower waste hauling rates for Californians.

“Patty is a force of nature,” recently retired RRCC Executive Director Trish Roath said. “There is no problem too big or bar too high for her. I have watched her tackle some of our industry’s greatest challenges. Marin County’s leadership in recycling is proof of her steadfast dedication to making our world a better place.”

Ms. Garbarino is the first female to receive this award and the first woman President of the RRCC (2000-2001). John P. Moscone was the first recipient of this award in 1990. This is also the first time in the organization’s sixty-year history whose father also received the award 20 years ago. 

Ms. Garbarino’s commitment to the community goes well beyond her job. Passionate about public education, she has led multiple successful school parcel tax and bond measures for the San Rafael City School District and serves on the Marin County Office of Education Board. She also currently serves on the Golden Gate Bridge Highway and Transportation District Board, SMART (Sonoma-Marin Area Rail Transit) Board. She was inducted into the Marin Women’s Hall of Fame in 1999. Patty has a Bachelor of Arts Degree and a Master of Sciences Degree, both from Dominican College.

MSS covers roughly 75% of Marin including the jurisdictions of San Rafael, Larkspur, San Anselmo, Ross, Fairfax, unincorporated areas of the County of Marin and the Las Gallinas Valley Sanitary District. In addition, the same ownership covers Windsor, the City of Napa and the lower half of the County of Napa.