"Lettuce" All Advocate

	this photo from KAZU in San Luis Obispo, CA, shows a truckload full of freshly packaged romaine dropped off at the Johnson Canyon Landfill and Recycling Center in Gonzales.

It’s so simple to pick up the phone and advocate and educate – whether it’s with a local solid waste management official, a legislator or a local reporter. It works!

Most of you heard about the unfortunate pre-Thanksgiving reports of people getting sick from E. coli found on romaine lettuce coming from California, which has happened before.

This time, we took the step at USCC to highlight and educate both the food industry and consumers. We took action with a press release about directing the material to a commercial compost manufacturer. We educated the press and the public that thermophilic composting can kill this pathogen when managed correctly at the facility while keeping it out of landfills.

Anecdotally, we learned that it had an impact on some of our facilities – most notably the Salinas Valley Solid Waste Authority, where Patrick Matthews, Mandy Brooks and Brian Moore and their team dealt with at least seven trucks carrying six to eight tons of lettuce each for composting (if you had tainted lettuce brought to your facility, please email Communications Director Linda Norris-Waldt, who is compiling the info, and see the UPI story here).

We asked – and will ask in the future – that you brush up your media contacts so that in the future we can reach out when issues affecting our industry arise. Also, if you did so, or if you talk to media or legislators about issues facing you locally, please use our Advocacy Reporting Form so we can begin to track your efforts (and also see Media Tips on the portal here).

It takes a village, it’s said. USCC can be extremely effective with our “bullhorn” when our members join in to help us get the word out!