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CENTRAL COAST
America Recycles Day, so reduce, reuse, and recycle
Posted: Nov 15, 2012 6:26 PM by Keli Moore, KSBY News
Updated: Nov 15, 2012 6:32 PM
Nov.15th is "America Recycles Day." It comes as the most wasteful time of year approaches, the holidays. The Environmental Protection Agency said between Thanksgiving and Christmas an extra 1-million tons of trash per week ends up in our landfills.
Often times people just don't realize that something can be recycled.
"Not having the desire to spend the time to figure out what can be recycled is a big part of the issue," said Lacy Ballard, who is the District Manager of Cold Canyon Landfill in San Luis Obispo.
About 70 percent of San Luis Obispo counties trash ends up at this landfill.
"This entire hill behind us all the way to the top is all garbage that has been buried over the past 40 years," said Ballard.
Cold Canyon landfill gets 600 tons of trash per day. To quantify that it's about seven large tractors. Ballard said 40 percent of the trash that's dumped into the landfill can be recycled. That's why they created Recovery Park, a place to leave the old, so it can become something new.
"The toilets and concrete get recycled and used as road base," said Ballard.
Metal, appliances, construction debris, water heaters, shelves even old mattress frames can be recycled at Recovery Park.
"We have places set up for cardboard and for green waste,for wood, for tires," said Ballard.
And some Central Coast residents have a strong desire to reduce, reuse, and recycle.
"It's the right thing to do. I have been a contractor for 20 years, and I think it is great that we have a facility like this," said Jason Manske, the owner of Manske Construction.
Manske doesn't waste time, he makes a weekly trip to the landfill.
"The drywall will get turned into new drywall and the wood gets ground up to use it for access roads," said Manske.
For more information on Cold Canyon landfill, click here.
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