Before his current job as Analyst/Planner for the Del Norte Solid Waste Management Authority, Tedd Ward got his start recycling at UC Davis, which continued through brief careers as a manufacturing engineer and then as a Peace Corps volunteer. There in Kenya, Tedd got into reuse by teaching high school teachers how to make lab equipment from their trash. When he returned to the US, after a lot of soul-searching, he concluded that his life was garbage, but he wanted to work in recovery and went to work with Gainer & Associates. While addressing issues of recycling economic development, pollution and waste prevention, and virgin materials subsidies, Tedd earned a Masters of Science in Environment Systems (International Development Technology) and taught classes in Solid Waste Management at Humboldt State University. There he fell in love with the rugged, rural redwood coast of Del Norte County, California.

In 1997, the Del Norte Solid Waste Management Authority became the first local government in the nation to endorse the policies of the California Resource Recovery Association’s Agenda for the New Millenium: zero waste, end welfare for wasting, and jumpstart jobs with design and discards. Tedd Ward was principle author of the Agenda for the New Millenium and is applying the principles of zero waste to Del Norte as Planner and co-author of the Del Norte Zero Waste Action Plan. His responsibilities at the Solid Waste Authority include planning and analysis for resource recovery, recycling, composting, and disposal strategies, environmental permitting, as well as grant and contractual negotiation and management.