A group of Maderans will meet again Nov. 10 to share information about recycling and how the city might lower the fee it has levied for additional recycling services.
At a meeting Thursday, Oct. 13, about 25 people, including city officials and citizens, traded information and asked questions to find out where the city was in relation to the state recycling requirements it has been ordered to meet.
What the group learned was that when it comes to recycling, the city and the county haven’t made much progress.
Thursday’s meeting was chaired by Baldwin Moy, attorney for California Rural Legal Assistance. Moy has emerged as a spokesman for low-income people unhappy over an increase in city utility rates voted last month by the City Council.
Rates for water and sewage treatment were increased beginning with this month’s bills.
A fee to institute a mandatory recycling program - as high or higher in some cases than the water and sewer fee increases combined - will appear on utility bills in February unless the council reverses its decision and establishes a less-expensive program.
State regulations require the municipality to divert at least 50 percent of its total garbage from the landfill through recycling. The county landfill at Fairmead, where the city dumps its garbage, has a recycling facility, but it is too small to handle the amount of garbage the city and county generate.
City Administrator David Tooley, city engineer Ray Salazar, solid waste manager Jim Shields and Mayor Gordon Skeels represented the city at the meeting. Supervisor Max Rodriguez represented the county.
The city decided to base its recycling program on a “blue can” strategy, Salazar said, after recycling programs in other cities were studied. The blue can is a third container, added to the two already required for each house. The two present containers are gray and green - the gray one for mixed garbage including recyclables, such as cans, bottles and newspapers, and the green one for yard trimmings and garden waste.
Salazar and Shields pointed out some facts about the city’s present recycling capability:
•It costs considerably more for the city to dump at the county landfill than it would if the city used the landfill that serves Fresno. The city’s landfill contract with the county ends Dec. 31, and may be renegotiated.
•While there are several small recycling stations in the city, there is no coordination.
•The city has no waste newspaper or cardboard drives to raise money, as some communities have.
•The landfill doesn’t have a composting facility, and therefore, green waste is used to cover regular garbage every night.
•It’s unlikely the city could develop another landfill because of state regulations which prohibit contamination of underground water supplies.
•The county landfill does have a gas extractor to draw off methane, but the gas is simply flared off, not used for electricity generation, primarily because the volume would not be big enough to power a generation facility.
•The county landfill was designed to handle about 125 tons of garbage a day, but is having to deal with 500 tons.
•Apartment complexes generally don’t have room for recycling containers.
•Making room for a recycling container on premises could be made a contingency for any new construction or remodeling of multifamily housing.
Rodriguez said he had discussed landfill fees with colleagues on the Board of Supervisors, and didn’t find much interest in lowering dump fees for the city.
Nancy DeLaCruz of San Jose, who owns a home in Madera and has experience in recycling, said it might pay for the city to operate its own recycling facility. She said such a facility could help pay for itself through the sale of recyclables.
“Once you have a facility up and running,” she said, “you are going to be able to recoup about 20 percent” of its operating cost.
Margretta Schleich, who said she does not live in the city but owns two rental properties there, said it would be a good idea to educate the public on recycling so they could do some of their own presorting rather than tossing everything into the same blue can.
“We’re woefully uneducated as to what is recyclable and what isn’t,” she said.
Schleich said people should be able to do recycling on a smaller scale rather than being compelled to pay for a blue can that they might not fill. She suggested the establishment of neighborhood recycling centers.
DeLaCruz said the state Integrated Waste Management Board was a good resource for those wanting to establish or improve their recycling capability.
She said the city might explore establishing a facility and then having a subcontractor operate it.
She said cardboard and newspaper drives were good ways for youth to earn money for school and church groups.
DeLaCruz also said it was important for people to be more conscientious in how they buy groceries and other products.
“You need to buy in bulk as much as you can, to keep containers out of the waste stream,” she said. “It’s a consumer option which can make a big difference.”
Salazar and Shields said they would conduct a study and have the results ready for the Nov. 10 meeting, which will be held in the Blanche Galloway room beginning at 6 p.m.
The meeting will be open to the public and Spanish translations will be available, Moy said.
Source: maderatribune.com
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