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WRAP - Waste Reduction Awards Program 
by JANE BOGNER
SUNDAY, May 01, 2005

Vallejo’s Earth Day celebration and the E-Waste and Tire Recycling event were incredibly successful this year. Thanks to all who participated. I spent the day directing traffic at Vallejo Garbage Service; watching all the cars and trucks come in with tires, old computers, TVs and other electronics. There were hundreds of residents and businesses passing through and they were so excited to clean out their garages and back rooms of obsolete equipment.

Now that all of you are in the recycling mood, I would like to challenge Vallejo businesses and nonprofit organizations to step up to the plate and show how they take care of the local environment.

WRAP, the Waste Reduction Awards Program, is sponsored by the California Integrated Waste Management Board. WRAP winners are recognized for their commitment to reduce waste through reuse and recycling in addition to buying recycled products. This is not a competition; each business is judged individually based upon its own accomplishments.

VALCORE Recycling has received four WRAP awards since 2001. I have filled out the application and in doing so, it has given me a clearer picture about how our small recycling center prevents waste and deals with the waste that our customers bring in.

WRAP 2004 awards went to 1,403 California businesses who reported saving more than $135 million dollars and diverting more than 1.8 million tons of waste destined for California landfills. Vallejo winners included North Bay Cabinets and Vallejo Garbage Service, as well as Safeway, Target, and Mervyn's. There were a total of twenty-two business locations in Solano County including Food Maxx, Anheuser-Busch, Cagwin & Dorward Landscape Contractors, and Genentech, Inc.

There are approximately one million businesses in California and they generate nearly half of California's waste. If all California businesses took the kind of lead the WRAP award winners have, there would be a tremendous drop in the amount of waste going to landfills. What are most businesses throwing away? Paper is the answer to this one in the form of office paper and cardboard. Clean office paper is easy to recycle. Another overlooked item is toner cartridges for printers and copiers. Nearly 86 percent of them are used once and thrown away, creating enough plastic waste to stretch halfway around the world. Today, businesses commonly refill or recycle toner cartridges, saving money and reducing waste at the same time.

The WRAP web site offers many guides to help businesses become more waste wise. Their Waste Reduction Resources include a Business Resource Efficiency program, California Materials Exchange (www.CalMAX.org), a Waste Prevention Information Exchange, Recycled Products Directory and more.

Sara Gallegos-Ascencio is Vallejo Garbage Service’s Recycling Manager. She will help Vallejo businesses conduct a waste audit and set up a recycling program. Call Sara at 707 551-2621. Business recycling information is being added to the Solano County recycling web site: www.recycle-guide.com. If you can’t find the answer you need, just send a comment on the site and I will do my best to get you the information.

The 2005 WRAP application is available online at www.ciwmb.ca.gov/WRAP/ or by calling Piper Miguelgorry (916) 341-6604. The applications are due on June 30, 2005.

VALLEJO COMPOSTING CLASSES

VALCORE will conduct a free backyard and earthworm composting class on May 7 and June 11 at 38 Sheridan from 10am to Noon. We will give away two BioStack compost bins to Vallejo residents at each workshop. The class is sponsored by the City of Vallejo.

VALCORE Recycling Vice President Jane Bogner's "A Sorted Affair" is published every other week in the Times-Herald, Community Outlook Section. For recycling information call Genie Kaggerud, VALCORE Recycling manager at 645-8258 or visit www.VALCORErecycling.org.

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