Rachel Machi Wagoner, director of CalRecycle, will step down from the role on March 5, she announced on Tuesday. 

“I am so incredibly proud of the work that we have done together and want to thank each of you for commitment to CalRecycle’s mission and to our work,” she wrote in an email to all CalReycle staff that was shared with Waste Dive. 

 

Gov. Gavin Newsom appointed Machi Wagoner in December 2020. She had previously served as Newsom’s deputy legislative secretary, and prior to that she was the chief consultant for the state Senate’s Committee on Environmental Quality. 

“I will be cheering you on as you continue to do the important work of building our circular economy, moving California to zero waste and saving our planet from climate change,” Machi Wagoner wrote in the staff email.

Machi Wagoner told Politico she did not have her next move lined up, but she said: “I feel like I've really accomplished what the governor sent me to CalRecycle to do and I am ready to move on.”

The news came as a surprise to some people in the recycling and waste industry. Some acknowledged that the director position requires focus on numerous complex programs, each of which require years of implementation. 

The agency, formally known as the Department of Resources Recycling and Recovery, grew to more than 1,000 staff during the current fiscal year and may see further expansion according to the governor’s proposed FY25 budget. CalRecycle is tasked with managing permitting, compliance, recycling grant funding, market development, education and disaster debris management, among other areas.

“We always found Director Wagoner to be open, thoughtful and collaborative in her approach as Executive Director of CalRecycle,” said Rachel Oster, co-founder of the Recycle Right Coalition, via email. “[That’s] no easy task while implementing and creating some of the most comprehensive recycling policies we’ve ever seen as an industry.”

Jeff Donlevy, general manager of Ming's Recycling and a member of CalRecycle’s Statewide Commission on Recycling Markets and Curbside Recycling, said via email that the director position “is too big for anyone to focus on all the existing programs and launch new programs.” Machi Wagoner “was very knowledgeable of the programs, always concerned, but always spread thin for time to focus on one area.”

Jaime Court, president of the group Consumer Watchdog which often engages on bottle bill issues, told Politico the news was “a big loss for the state of recycling” due to the director’s knowledge.

CalRecycle is currently working to implement several high-profile policies: SB 1383, the state’s major organic waste diversion law; SB 343, a recyclability claims law; SB 54, the state’s EPR for packaging law; multiple updates to the bottle bill, and multiple other initiatives.

“Folks around the country are watching what happens before they replicate our policies so there is a lot at stake,” wrote Nick Lapis, director of advocacy for Californians Against Waste.

Machi Wagoner worked on efforts to increase the state’s recycling and organics activity in the years after the pandemic, saying in a 2022 interview with Waste Dive that partnerships between CalRecycle and the waste industry are “absolutely critical” to further improvements.