Fresno No. 1 in recycling in state among large cities. - Fresno Bee
"The community has really responded to the challenge," said Bob Weakley, chief of operations for Fresno's solid waste programs.
Weakley said that he and other city officials are happy that Fresno's recycling program has outpaced cities such as San Francisco and San Jose. Fresno is now close to reaching its goal of diverting 75% of its trash from landfills by 2012.
"We could achieve it very soon just by increasing diversion rates from commercial businesses and multi-family residences," Weakley said.
Fresno has a contract with Sunset Waste Systems for its recycling program. John Mohoff, the recycling company's general manager, said technology and changes to the way the city runs its recycling program have helped improve recycling efforts.
In 2000, Fresno eliminated the small green bins that required residents to separate recyclables and replaced them with larger blue bins that allowed residents to mix all recyclable materials.
Clovis is in the process of switching to a similar system, officials there said. Clovis diverted 59% of its waste from landfills in 2006, according to state data.
Howdy, Dinosaurs and Robots! Thanks to Mister Jalopy for the ltra-kind introduction. I'm writing this from my living room control center, nursing a touch of laryngitis I developed after my annual SuperBowl fondue party. That's right. I think I'm the first person in history to lose his voice at a fondue party. I moved to Eureka, California last year after spending a year teaching at a community college in Huntington Beach. I liked Huntington Beach, but I always got a feeling that its best days were behind it. It's used to be a cool, laid-back surf town, but now it's busy paving over the dive bars and cheap motels to turn Huntington Beach into yet another faceless Southern California luxury hotel destination. Pity.
That's not to say there weren't culture shocks. Most people don't know Northern California exists....particularly Californians. Whenever I tell people that...