Recycling for Charity--or a Burger

For 4-year-old Greta Shaver, the road to happiness leads through a scrap heap.

More specifically, it leads through the San Pedro Recycling Center, where Greta and other neighborhood youngsters from nearby Ft. MacArthur convert cans, jars and old newspapers into hamburger money.

Although local Girl Scouts also collect recyclable items at the military housing area, younger neighborhood children have picked up on the idea.

“They don’t make a tremendous amount of money, but it’s a fun amount to do something with,” said Tina Nelson, who drove Greta to the Gaffey Street recycling yard the other day to redeem the children’s collection.

“We’ve all gotten to the point where we hate to throw soda cans away. When we go to the park with the children, we carry them to the car instead of to the trash barrel. It’s a good thing for the kids--and for me.”

It has turned into a good thing for children all over San Pedro.

When the price of newsprint dropped, recycling center manager Carlo Baroncini encouraged harbor-area residents to save their old papers by setting up a special paper recycling bin for the San Pedro Boys Club. These days, the bin raises about $500 a month for youth activities there, he said.

Baroncini pays 1 1/4 cents a pound for old papers, 85 cents a pound for aluminum cans and 4 cents a pound for glass bottles and jars.

But he also gives bonuses to scavengers like Ed Defever, a San Pedro retiree who donates money from cans and bottles that he recycles to the Special Olympics for handicapped children.

Defever, who retrieves recyclables from the marina area, said he raised more than $120 for the youth program during a recent three-week period.

Greta collected a little more than $4 for her neighborhood’s efforts.

From the scrap yard, Nelson drove her to a nearby elementary school. There, the two of them collected 5-year-olds Bob B. Nelson and Jeff Alstott.

Then it was off to Burger King.