2024 Environmental Excellence Business Award Winners

On May 3, 2024, the Tacoma-Pierce County Chamber, Communities for a Healthy Bay, and Port of Tacoma partnered to launch a new annual award program designed to recognize local Pierce County business that demonstrate an extraordinary commitment to environmental excellence and sustainability in our region.

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Congratulations to the following winners:

Environmental Excellence Business Innovation Award
Winner: Aquagga
Aquagga is a cleantech startup firmly headquartered in Tacoma, developing portable, containerized systems that safely and cleanly destroy PFAS "forever chemicals" with zero emissions or toxic byproducts. Aquagga is currently engaged with projects sponsored by the DoD to bring their "HALT" PFAS destruction technology to market and are one of the world's leading PFAS destruction companies.
Aquagga just completed their second commercial-scale PFAS destruction demonstration project.

Aquagga is working with the City of Tacoma and the University of Washington Tacoma on a PFAS removal and destruction demonstration project at the City's wastewater treatment plant, a first-of its-kind.
                             
Environmental Excellence Business Award
Winner: Radius Recycling
Radius Recycling operates 54 metals recycling facilities, including 7 shredding operations, and 3 with deep water access on the West Coast. They also own 50 auto dismantling and retails stores, and a state-of-the-art electric arc steel mill that produces finished steel products made from recycled ferrous metals. 

In Tacoma, Radius Recycling has recycled 592,303 tons of ferrous metals and 28,245 tons of non-ferrous metals in the last year. This supports new infrastructure projects and low-carbon, metal-intensive technologies such as wind, solar, and electric vehicles. In January of 2023, Radius was ranked #1 on Corporate Knights’ 100 Most Sustainable Companies and Time Magazine’s 100 Most Influential Companies. Radius Recycling is also a proud contributor in Tacoma Public Utilities Evergreen Options Program Radius is committed to a future with less waste, turning old into new, and supplying the essential materials for critical industries to foster more resilient communities.

Honorable Mention: LRI: A Subsidiary of Waste Connections
LRI owns and/or operates seven waste disposal facilities in Pierce County. The LRI Landfill collects over 5,000 Standard Cubic Feet per Minute of landfill gas. Gas is piped to a Landfill Gas to Energy Facility that creates enough power for 4,000 homes.
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The Hidden Valley and Purdy Compost Facilities receive nearly 100,000 tons of yard waste from throughout Pierce County per year. It is transformed into certified organic compost!