OCC Recycling Center gets $500,000 for expansion

A Southern California recycling and waste management company has pledged half a million dollars to Orange Coast College’s recycling center.

The money from Stanton-based CR&R; Waste and Recycling Services, plus $1.5 million already pledged from the Associated Students, will fund an expansion to the center.

The expansion, designed by the Costa Mesa-based architectural firm Dougherty & Dougherty, will include an educational center, instructional classrooms and 22 new parking spaces for a total of 30.

“Every day, people pull in and pull right back out,” OCC sustainability coordinator Mike Carey said about the parking in a prepared statement. He has managed the Recycling Center for 30 years.

The money will be paid at $100,000 a year over a period of five years, according to a press release from the college.

The Recycling Center at Adams Avenue near Fairview Road is open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Saturday, during which time visitors can drop off recyclable beverage containers and receive their California Redemption Value or turn in electronic waste, such as old TVs and computers. Sundays are open only for donations.

OCC collects 75,000 plastic bottles, 50,000 aluminum cans and one ton each of metal and newspaper every day, according to the release.

CR&R; has been Costa Mesa Sanitary District’s waste hauler for decades. Former Sanitary District Commissioner Jim Fitzpatrick, now a planniing commissioner, had been a critic of that contract, asking that it be put out to public bid.