The saying goes, one person’s trash is another person’s treasure, and Alelia Parenteau, CEO of GreenProject Consultants, has crafted an innovative way to both monetize trash and simultaneously save the planet.

Raised in eco-conscious Seattle, Parenteau says her family always had their eye on sustainability. She credits her European mother, who she says “uses less of everything.”

“Early on, I knew I wanted to leave my mark, and I when I realized how finite most our natural resources are, I knew I had to do something,” Parenteau said.

That desire led her to earn a degree in environmental studies, which she now uses in her full-time position with the city of Santa Barbara as a solid waste code enforcement officer.

In her position, Parenteau said she has seen firsthand the damaging effects of landfill waste on the environment. Santa Barbara mandated a zero-waste policy for any of the city’s events, and she witnessed this transition toward recycling, commercial composting and planning to avoid waste creation. Residents and business owners began contacting the city for the same service, and Parenteau saw an opportunity.

With her intimate knowledge of how the waste systems work citywide, as well as her entrepreneurial urge, Parenteau decided to create a company focused on waste diversion. She and her husband, Thomas Oretsky, co-founded GreenProject Consultants.

Now in its fourth year, the company offers a host of services for building and event industries, the leading producers of environmental waste.

“My team provides the management, knowledge and products required to ensure a project is sustainable, timely and fits within your financial goals,” Parenteau said.

GreenProduct Consultants has two main services. For the event community, it offers planning and on-site service for recycling and removal of solid waste. Second, it offers planning and management to ensure green building for the construction and renovation projects by architects and construction companies.

Event planners or in-house marketing staff typically hire GreenProduct Consultants. The team educates and advises clients on items to make their event low- or zero-waste.

“Many people don’t realize what can or can’t be recycled — ketchup packets and chip bags, for example — or small ways they can plan ahead and save their event from generating significant waste,” Parenteau said.

During the event, she and her team provide colorful bins for recycling, composting and landfill. After the event, they take all of the items back to their facility and hand sort to ensure everything is where it should be. Parenteau then generates a diversion report, which details categorically how much waste was diverted from the landfill. Year after year, clients see progress as attendees and vendors get on board with the environmental efforts.

In addition to the on-site management, Parenteau and her team offer a party kit, which includes all of the materials (cups, plates, utensils, napkins) for an event. They drop them off and pick them up to make it a seamless and cost-effective option for planners.

GreenProject Consultants’ client roster tallies more than 100 annual events, including the Santa Barbara Home Show, the Santa Barbara International Film Festival and the California Avocado Festival, which hosts 100,000 visitors over three days in Carpinteria.

“We achieved a 74 percent diversion rate at this massive event, which is outstanding, when according to CalRecycle, large events typically only divert 11 percent of their waste from landfills,” Parenteau said.

For the building industry, GreenProject Consultants oversees projects to ensure they are green and efficient.

“In working with builders, our team audits the waste stream, develops waste management and reduction policies, and implements programs that will educate building occupants to make it easy to keep waste out of the landfill,” she said. “We can also help with design and construction decisions as well as LEED certification.”

Santa Barbara is unique in that it is one of the few cities that have commercial composting facilities as well as recycling capabilities for items with a number of 1 through 6 (most cities offer recycling only for designations 1 and 2). Parenteau said the main factor in recycling and waste diversion is human behavior, so awareness and exposure are key to success.

Most big events happen on the weekends, so Parenteau and Oretsky have kept their full-time jobs while the business has grown from infancy. In 2011, they are expanding to Southern California and pursuing government contracts.

Click here for more information about GreenProject Consultants and its services.

— Noozhawk contributor Jenn Kennedy can be reached at jennkennedy@noozhawk.com. Click here to see more of her work. Follow Noozhawk on Twitter: @noozhawk or @NoozhawkNews.