BURBANK : Earth Day Event Focuses on City Recycling Plant
Burbank showed off its recycling center Friday to observe Earth Day.
“Our center is doing well and we wanted to show it to people,” said Hope McAloon, a Burbank recycling specialist.
Friday’s program featured tours of the recycling center’s new learning center, demonstrations of the recycling process and exhibits that explained how to conserve water and electricity. A local naturalist showed how insects and worms turn yard trimmings and vegetable peels into soil.
Burbank’s recycling program, one of the oldest in the state, began in 1982. The center opened at its current location in 1992 and has since grown from recycling 1,000 tons to 3,000 tons of cans, bottles, newspapers and cardboard a month.
One reason for the increase is the city’s automated trash pickup program that began last year, McAloon said. Two-thirds of the city’s garbage-collection customers are on the system, in which trash, yard trimmings and recyclables are collected in separate bins.
The program has been phased in by the city since April, 1993. The entire city will be on the program by September, officials said.
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