SAN DIEGO HONORS RECYCLERS
City of San Diego Mayor Dick Murphy and County Supervisor Pam Slater honored 42 local businesses and organizations for their innovative waste reduction and recycling programs during the Annual San Diego Earth Works VIP (Very Important Planet) Reception Wednesday, April 24.
In addition, Judy McCarty received the first Environmental Champion award from the Environmental Services Department for her efforts to further waste reduction and recycling in San Diego during her 15 years on City Council. Her environmental achievements include leading a regional taskforce on recycling, involvement in community cleanups and an instrumental role in expanding curbside recycling to all city residents.
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TUCSON MOVES TO WEEKLY COLLECTION |
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Tucson City Council has tentatively approved a budget funding the change from every-other-week to weekly collection of recyclables and garbage beginning in July. Eliseo Garza, solid waste director, says the change will save the city $2 million a year. Most of the savings will come from eliminating Waste Management’s current $1.7 million contract to collect recyclable materials every other week, Garza says. Additionally, the weekly collection will save the department money by configuring routes more efficiently, allowing 17 of the oldest trucks to be eliminated, he says. Garza has encouraged the city to convert to weekly collections since 1995. A changeover plan was withdrawn last year because it was to be funded by a garbage collection fee that council rejected. City Manager James Keen says he has no immediate plan to reintroduce the fee proposal, especially during the economic downturn. Garza says the garbage collection changeover will start July 1 with 7,800 homes in the area of East Speedway and North Houghton Road and will expand by 7,800 homes weekly until the entire city is included by late November or early December. |
Recyclers of the Year are:
• Gold Mine Natural Food
• Harper Construction Company
Inc., Watkins Contracting Inc. and
The Corky McMillin Companies
• Kaiser Permanente
• Kyocera America Inc.
• Kyocera Wireleses Corporation
• Narven Enterprises Inc.
• Ocean Beach People’s Organic
Foods Co-op
• Science Applications International
Corporation
• Unisys
• United States Postal Service
• University of San Diego
The City of San Diego General Services Department, Purchasing Division, and the City’s Transportation Department, Street Division, were recognized as Environmental Partners.
San Diego State University received the Climate Wise-Energy Star Partner of the Year award.
The Director’s Recycling Award winners are: Albertson’s Inc.; Biosite Incorporated; Goodwill Industries of San Diego County Inc.; InfoGation Corporation; La Jolla Beach & Tennis Club Inc.; Manchester Grand Hyatt San Diego; Target Corporation – Target Stores; Sony Electronics Inc.; Teradeta, a division of NCR Corp.; TRW Radio Systems; Vons a Safeway Company; and Westfield Shoppingtown Mission Valley.
Honorable mentions went to: Bazaar del Mondo; Cox Communications; ENCAD Inc.; Hewlett-Packard Company; Luce, Forward, Hamilton & Scripps LLP; Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego; NCS HealthCare; Qualcomm Stadium; Quality Resort Mission Valley; REMEC Inc.; San Diego Convention Center Corporation; San Diego Marriott Hotel and Marina; Sonosky, Chambers, Sachese, Enderson & Perry; The Orchard; and the Salvation Army San Diego Silvercrest Residence.
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NASHVILLE LAUNCHES CURBSIDE PROGRAM |
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Nashville Mayor Bill Purcell has offered details about the citywide household recycling program . His remarks were made during a speech on waste management issues in April. He also presented the rolling 95-gallon carts to be used within the Urban Services District (USD). The household program started Monday, April 22, as residents began receiving carts. Carts will be distributed to more than 100,000 single-family homes within the USD during the next six months. “Forty-eight percent of our residential waste stream is paper, cardboard and cans of various types. This program is designed to recycle that huge share of our garbage and divert it away from landfills,” says Mayor Purcell. Chace Anderson, assistant director of public works, oversees the recycling program. He says the new program is larger and more inclusive than the program ended in 2000, in which 6,000 homes participated on a regular basis. Bins will be collected monthly to reduce program costs. Items such as glass and plastic excluded from curbside collection can be taken to any of 10 recycling drop-off centers located throughout Davidson county. The city’s goal is to increase recycling from eight percent to 25 percent by 2004. |
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