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OAKLAND – The mayors of five Bay Area
cities joined forces in declaring July
as “Bottle and Can Recycling Month” as
hundreds of California’s recycling
specialists gathered this week to
discuss ways to improve environmental
and social performance.
Issued at the
California Resource Recovery
Association’s 26th annual conference,
the mayors’ proclamation is part of a
statewide effort to increase beverage
container recycling rates.
The Bay Area mayors
who signed the proclamation declaring
“Bottle and Can Recycling Month” in
their communities are:
· Mayor Jerry Brown,
Oakland
· Mayor Willie Brown, San Francisco
· Mayor Ron Gonzales, San Jose
· Mayor Frederik M. Fowler, Sunnyvale
· Mayor Anne B. Solem, Mill Valley
During his opening remarks, California
Department of Conservation Director
Darryl Young announced the proclamations
and congratulated the Bay Area cities
for their dedication to supporting
bottle and can recycling.
“CRRA’s annual
conference helps provide California’s
recycling and solid-waste experts with a
stable of resources to help them do
their jobs more effectively,” Young
said. “The Bay Area cities’ recycling
proclamations are one of the many
examples of steps cities and counties
can take to encourage their communities
to recycle their beverage containers.”
More than 16 billion
CRV containers are sold in California
each year, and about 10 billion have
been recycled each of the past two
years. That leaves six billion bottles
and cans – worth about $160 million in
CRV– that end up in the trash instead of
the recycling bin.
California is one of
10 states with a beverage
container-recycling program. The
Department of Conservation administers
the California Beverage Container
Recycling and Litter Reduction Act,
which became law in 1986. The primary
goal of the act is to achieve and
maintain high recycling rates for each
beverage container type included in the
program.
Consumers pay CRV
(California Refund Value) when they
purchase beverages from a retailer. The
deposits are refunded when empty
containers are redeemed through local
recycling centers. More information on
the state's beverage container recycling
program is available at
www.bottlesandcans.com, or by
calling 1-800-RECYCLE.
In addition to
promotion of the state's beverage
container recycling program, the
Department of Conservation administers
programs to safeguard agricultural and
open-space land; regulates oil, gas and
geothermal wells in the state; studies
and maps earthquakes, landslides and
mineral resources; and ensures
reclamation of land used for mining.
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