As the bumper sticker says, waste is a terrible thing to mind.
That
’s why businesses and residents in Morgan Hill and
unincorporated south Santa Clara County doing a superb job of
reducing waste through careful recycling are recognized each year
by South Valley Disposal
&
amp; Recycling.
As the bumper sticker says, waste is a terrible thing to mind.
That’s why businesses and residents in Morgan Hill and unincorporated south Santa Clara County doing a superb job of reducing waste through careful recycling are recognized each year by South Valley Disposal & Recycling.
Julie Osborne, recycling coordinator for South Valley Disposal & Recycling, starts the process by asking the company’s truck drivers to make nominations for the annual Recycler of the Year awards.
“They’re pretty picky,” Osborne said of the the drivers’ standards. “They think of the people who have clean recycling and keep it neat.”
Osborne interviews the nominees and makes the final choices for the awards: business and residential recycler of the year for Morgan Hill and unincorporated south Santa Clara County.
For business recyclers, this year Osborne honored companies who have an extra challenge: educating not only employees, but customers, about the importance of recycling.
“There are challenges with getting patrons to recycle,” Osborne said. “I try to pick businesses that do something a little out of the ordinary.”
In Morgan Hill, Nob Hill Wash & Dry, located at 209 W. Main Ave., is the 2002 business Recycler of the Year.
Out of the ordinary certainly describes the efforts of Keith and DeVonna Meyer, owners of the self-service laundry in the Old Nob Hill Shopping Center at Hale Avenue.
“We’ve owned the laundromat for 15 years,” Keith Meyer said. “A major portion of the trash at the laundromat is plastic detergent containers.”
Before South Valley’s business recycling program began, Meyer couldn’t bear to see all those plastic bottles headed to the landfill, so, he pulled the bottles out of the laundromat’s trash.
“We hauled it to our house,” Meyer recalled. “We would have piles of recycling in front of our house.”
Meyer estimated that as many as 15 “huge” garbage bags filled with empty bottles of Tide, Downy and Clorox would sit in front of his home near Diana Park on recycling pickup day.
“People must have thought we must be clean fanatics who do a lot of laundry,” Meyer speculated with a chuckle.
Besides what the neighbors might think, Meyer’s home-based business recycling program had another downside.
“My car got bleached out on the floor and it smelled like Downy and Tide,” Meyer said.
Meyer was thrilled when South Valley Disposal instituted a business recycling program featuring lockable toters that prevent people from throwing trash into recycling containers.
“All of a sudden, it was easy,” Meyer said.
He now uses three toters for plastic recycling and two for mixed paper.
“The customers are starting to catch on,” he said.
Meyer has two reasons for emphasizing recycling.
“The primary motivation is I’ve been recycling all of my life,” Meyer said. “I lived in Santa Cruz in my college years, the recycling capital of the world.”
Besides helping the environment, recycling also helps Meyer’s bottom line.
“We used to empty our two-yard dumpster twice a week,” he said. Now that South Valley’s implemented a business recycling program, “I’ve phased it down to once a week. That’s saved us $50 or $60 a month.”
Just like the laundry, Thousand Trails – the 2002 business Recycler of the Year for unincorporated south Santa Clara County – must educate patrons and workers about how and why they should recycle while at the park.
Thousand Trails is a 66-acre membership vehicle recreation park located west of Morgan Hill.
“They have to teach people who come in and out to recycle,” Osborne said. “They have (details on) where you recycle and what is recyclable in their information packet. They have recycling areas set up for their customers.”
Like Meyer, former Thousand Trails manager Liz Green said setting up the business recycling program was a snap.
“It was very simple,” said Green, who now manages Thousand Trails’ Russian River park. “All I did was call and that was it.”
Current Manager Eddie Sheek said he will continue the recycling program that Green started.
“It probably saved at least of dumpster a year,” Green estimated, diverting recyclable trash that otherwise would have been sent to a landfill.
The residential Recycler of the Year for 2002 in Morgan Hill is the Robert Fosbaugh family.
“The Fosbaugh family said that it was their goal to be Recycler of the Year,” Osborne said. “They teach the whole family about how to recycle, what container to use. They think recycling is very important.”
Kay Fosbaugh, along with the Meyer family, was presented with a plaque made from recycled cardboard at Wednesday’s City Council meeting.
“We worked very hard to get this,” Fosbaugh said. She laughingly blamed the award on her husband.
“He follows along behind us and catches anything we missed,” she said.
The residential Recycler of the Year for 2002 in unincorporated south Santa Clara County is Gene and Inez Mendoza family.
Osborne credits the Mendozas with comprehensive recycling, including composting and cutting six-pack plastic rings, as well as taking advantage of the county’s household hazardous waste facility.
Details: Companies interested in starting a business recycling program should call South Valley Disposal & Recycling at 842-3358. To make a nomination for the 2003 Recycler of the Year program, e-mail Julie Osborne at jo******@*****************al.com
