Hollister making strides, Gilroy adding to already sound
recycling numbers
Gilroy and Hollister are continuing efforts to reduce the amount
of waste they are sending to landfills and working on new programs
to increase recycling efforts in their communities. However, the
barrier still seems to be with those not willing to get on board
the recycling wagon.
Hollister making strides, Gilroy adding to already sound recycling numbers
Gilroy and Hollister are continuing efforts to reduce the amount of waste they are sending to landfills and working on new programs to increase recycling efforts in their communities. However, the barrier still seems to be with those not willing to get on board the recycling wagon.
Reducing the need for more landfills is important because there is a finite amount of land available to shove garbage into, and as space runs out, the cost to consumers and taxpayers not to recycle material is increasingly expensive.
As the director of San Benito County’s Integrated Waste Management Department, Mandy Rose is charged with ensuring the county meets all state and environmental regulations, including those mandated by the Integrated Waste Management Act of 1989, known commonly as AB939. The law required that counties and cities in California divert 50 percent of material they dump into landfills by 2000.
As of 2004, Hollister, San Juan Bautista and unincorporated San Benito County are collectively at 46 percent waste diversion towards the 50 percent goal as of 2004, according to the California Integrated Waste Management Board.
The 2005 numbers are not yet available – they won’t be available until March of 2007, but according to Rose, the regional agency is close.
If the regional agency doesn’t make the mandated compliance level, it will continue to have its program evaluated.
“We didn’t get mandatory recycling here until 2002, but because we didn’t get on board until after the rest of the state, we get the advantage of seeing what worked and what didn’t. In a sense obviously it wasn’t good that it took us so long, but we didn’t make some of the mistakes others did,” Rose said.
Residential recycling efforts are probably up with the national averages, according to Rose, but she said that commercial contributors could do better.
“We’re getting ready to go out to bids for a new refuse and recycling contract and we’re hoping that we can start a fresh recycling effort,” Rose said.
She was quick to point out that some businesses are doing their part.
“Some businesses go way beyond, but collectively we need to work with commercial businesses, since they make up 70 percent of the waste stream,” Rose said.
There are programs in place to educate business owners, but the situation is that time equals money and many businesses don’t seem to be willing to spare what little of that they have. Rose said that they offer waste audits for businesses so that they can educate themselves on how to reduce their waste stream.
In the waste audits, the refuse hauler will go through a business’ garbage and look at how waste is being generated and recommend ways to not only recycle, but also how to prevent waste from being produced in the first place. In the end businesses can save money through recycling and waste reduction.
Unfortunately, Rose says that the waste audit program has been advertising the program for the last five years and rarely has any takers.
San Benito County isn’t taking any drastic measures yet. Santa Cruz County actually fines people if they find recyclable items in the trash.
All recyclables that can be placed in the curbside single stream-recycling container can also be dropped off free-of-charge at the John Smith Road Landfill. Up to 25 pounds of metal can be dropped off free-of-charge as well.
Gilroy has been in compliance with the ordinance since 2002, according to Lisa Jensema environmental programs coordinator for the city of Gilroy. Gilroy has quite a few businesses with recycling programs in place, but that there is still room for improvement.
Recently, the City of Gilroy recognized one business and one family for their recycling efforts. The Printing Spot was recognized as the 2005 Business Recycler of the Year.
Owner Larry Kwong speculated that prior to implementing the environmental changes his business was spending $200 per month on their waste disposal bill, but now the bill averages $80.
“Now we have trouble filling up our garbage bins because everything goes into recycling. Our neighbors come by and throw their garbage into our bins,” Kwong said.
In terms of residential recycling, Gilroy offers composting in addition to the other recycling programs they operate. That way, residents can recycle any food scraps they couldn’t previously recycle. Examples of these include greasy pizza boxes and small scraps of food.
Jensema doesn’t know of too many cities with programs like this one yet. She said that Gilroy had a gap in its recycling efforts, but with the composting it offers another element. Jensema said that the city even offers free food buckets where people can keep their food scraps and then they just dump that into their yard waste containers.
The program is not, however, offered to multifamily homes and it is unclear when and if it will be.
Regulations are not going to change and businesses need to see this as a smart business move, according to Jensema.
“Businesses can save hundreds of dollars per month through recycling. We’ll come out and give them the containers. We’ll even provide assistance figuring out the waste stream, if there is another business that can make use of the bi-product of another company we’ll put them in touch. Reusing is always better than recycling, because recycling costs money and energy,” Jensema said.
Additionally, Gilroy is also looking at proposing an ordinance, which would require construction projects over a certain size to show proof to the city that they recycled 50 percent of the waste from their project.
“Staff is still researching the ordinance,” Jensema said. “But a lot of cities in Santa Clara County are already going in this direction, so a lot of developers are already used to this if they build in other cities.”
While recycling common household items seems second-nature for some South County residents, many are still clueless about what to do when the big screen TV starts to burn out or the computer monitor pops for the last time.
Televisions, monitors, computer hard drives and accessories can be dropped off at Thomas Recycling in Gilroy. Owner Marv Thomas operated his recycling business in May of 2005 and offers free electronic recycling to anybody who wants to drop off their appliances. The only thing he can’t take is microwaves. Thomas recycling is located at 305 Mayock Road.
