LRI values its partnership with Pierce County and the City of Tacoma. Their staff along with LRI is dedicated to providing sound environmentally safe ways of handing, reducing, recycling and disposing of solid waste. We are committed to keeping Pierce County and the City of Tacoma a beautiful place to live.

Pierce County
Pierce County government is responsible for countywide planning and management services for waste generated and collected within the unincorporated areas and 19 municipalities; the development of curbside recycling minimum service levels and other model recycling programs; countywide public education and outreach about solid waste disposal issues and waste reduction and recycling; data monitoring and collection; contracts for disposal rates; and to "cost-effectively plan for, design, and/or site disposal facilities."

The goals and policies of the adopted Tacoma-Pierce County Solid Waste Management Plan direct the County's approach to solid waste handling in Pierce County. The Plan is regularly revised with participation by the Pierce County Solid Waste Advisory Committee (SWAC), a citizen committee appointed to advise the Pierce County Council and the cities and towns using the Pierce County waste management system.

The primary funding source for the Pierce County management system is the tipping fee. It includes the cost of disposal plus the cost of other elements of the solid waste system. These other elements include: transfer stations, the cost to transfer waste between facilities, the County's Purdy composting facility, and administration. It also includes public outreach, planning, and education programs.

The tipping fee is established through Pierce County's contract with LRI. The contract directs the relationship between the County and LRI by setting basic rates for disposal, transfer, recycling, and administration programs and how the contract is to be amended or rates changed. The contract was amended in 1997 to include provisions to allow waste export and to extend the contract to the year 2011. It was again revised in 1998. A new Pierce County/LRI Waste Handling Agreement took effect January 1, 1999.

City of Tacoma
The City of Tacoma has operated a Solid Waste Utility since 1929 and that agency is responsible for management and operation of the City's municipal solid waste and recycling collection programs and disposal system. The City of Tacoma renegotiated its long-standing contract with LRI for disposal of the city's solid waste.

The City of Tacoma collects co-mingled residential curbside recycling and delivers it to a full-service recycling center and materials recovery facility, which provides the processing, and marketing of the materials collected.