CITY SET TO ADD FOOD TO RECYCLE YARD BIN CAN HOLD FRUITS, VEGETABLES.Byline: ALEX DOBUZINSKIS Staff Writer SANTA CLARITA Santa Clarita, city (1990 pop. 110,642), Los Angeles co., S Calif., suburb 30 mi (48 km) NW of downtown Los Angeles, on the Santa Clara River; inc. 1987. Situated in the Santa Clara valley and nearby canyons, Santa Clarita includes the former towns of Canyon Country, -- The time is ripe for residents to start tossing fruit and vegetable scraps into the same bins as their yard clippings, under a new program announced this week. Waste Management/Blue Barrel, which hauls Santa Clarita's residential trash, now takes potato peels, apple cores and other raw fruit and vegetable scraps for composting
v. di·vert·ed, di·vert·ing, di·verts v.tr. 1. To turn aside from a course or direction: Traffic was diverted around the scene of the accident. 2. trash from landfills. ``For a lot of the environmentally conscious residents who aren't composting in their own backyards, now they can actually still do the right thing and just put it in the green-waste bin,'' said Ben Lucha, environmental project development coordinator for the city. Waste Management began accepting fruit and vegetable scraps in April, as it geared up for the official announcement of the program. The company started promoting the program Tuesday at Santa Clarita's Independence Day parade. Waste Management collects about 2,000 tons of green waste a month from the gray containers residents leave out with their trash and their recycling recycling, the process of recovering and reusing waste products—from household use, manufacturing, agriculture, and business—and thereby reducing their burden on the environment. . Company officials hope to take in 10 percent more green waste with the fruit and vegetable scraps, amounting to about 200 tons a month. In a number of Northern California Northern California, sometimes referred to as NorCal, is the northern portion of the U.S. state of California. The region contains the San Francisco Bay Area, the state capital, Sacramento; as well as the substantial natural beauty of the redwood forests, the northern cities, Waste Management already takes fruit and vegetable scraps for composting. The new program is meant to help the city live within a state-mandated goal of diverting di·vert v. di·vert·ed, di·vert·ing, di·verts v.tr. 1. To turn aside from a course or direction: Traffic was diverted around the scene of the accident. 2. 50 percent of trash away from landfills. The city is still awaiting the numbers on whether it met that goal in 2005, Lucha said. The city's green waste is processed by a Ventura County company called Agromin. Agriculture is just one of the potential uses for the material. ``There's no reason to throw it away, that's for sure,'' said Lynne Plambeck, president of Santa Clarita Organization for Planning the Environment. ``It's good mulch mulch, any material, usually organic, that is spread on the ground to protect the soil and the roots of plants from the effects of soil crusting, erosion, or freezing; it is also used to retard the growth of weeds. , it's good everything.'' alex.dobuzinskis(at)dailynews.com (661) 257-5253 |
|
||||||||||||||
Printer friendly
Cite/link
Email
Feedback
Reader Opinion