People from over 100 countries have toured the Sanitation Districts’ facilities to learn about our state-of-the-art methods for wastewater treatment and solid waste management. We invite you and your class to also take a tour!
With our free bus program, you can visit one of our facilities. If your school is located in an area where we provide both wastewater and solid waste services, then you can visit either a landfill or wastewater treatment plant. Otherwise, you will visit the type of facility that serves you. Please see the attached service area list for more information.
Our most popular facilities to tour are the San Jose Creek Water Reclamation Plant and the Puente Hills Landfill, both located just outside the city of Whittier. At the San Jose Creek Plant, you will learn how your wastewater is cleaned and recycled for uses such as landscape irrigation. At the Puente Hills Landfill, you will see what happens to your trash at a landfill and even learn how it produces electricity.
The tour takes approximately 1½ hours.
Your students will enjoy and learn more from their field trip if they know a little about what they will see. Please take time to introduce your students to wastewater and solid waste concepts such as recycling, water quality, and others.
Follow the Flow…Where Solid and Liquid Waste Come From…And Where They Go, a teacher’s guide to use before and after Sanitation Districts’ tours, is available to help you prepare your students for their tour. Follow the Flow provides you with background information, classroom lessons and hands-on activities. The guide is correlated to California State Content Standards.
Please contact us to receive a free hard copy of Follow the Flow or download it here.
Program Procedure
Schedule a tour by contacting us. Please provide us with three potential tour dates – your preferred date and two back-up choices. As space is limited, please contact us as soon as possible.
We ask that you bring one class or approximately 30 students on the tour. For Grades 5-8, we also request that you provide one adult chaperone for every 10 students.
Order a bus through your school or school district. Ask them to send us an invoice and we will reimburse them. If requested, we will provide a letter of responsibility specifying that we will pay for the bus.
- Please prepare your students for their tour using Follow the Flow or any other materials. Review safety guidelines with them as well.
Come and enjoy the tour! Please note that we do not have lunch facilities for students at our sites. However, we would be happy to recommend a local park to you.
Rainy weather will cancel your tour. If you have scheduled a landfill tour, your tour may be cancelled if it has rained even a few days prior to your tour date, because of muddy roads at the site. We will reschedule your tour, if possible. If you have any questions about weather conditions or to verify whether or not your tour is cancelled, please contact us.
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The Sanitation Districts of Los Angeles County are offering you a free field trip to our facilities (while funds last). If you qualify, we will reimburse you for your bus transportation costs to visit either a treatment plant or landfill. This is a unique opportunity for you and your students. You will get to see, learn, and really experience what happens to your sewage or trash. It is fun, interesting, and educational!