Recycling

I am a seventh-grader at St. Bede Elementary School in La Cañada. I am trying to bring awareness to the benefits of recycling to your readers. The seventh-graders at St. Bede School have worked hard this week to recycle $68 worth of cans. Our class wants your readers to know that you can also make a big difference in your community by recycling. You can make the world a better place if you recycle because you will conserve energy and save valuable landfill space that is greatly needed by the city of Glendale.

“Funkify Don’t Junkify” was the name of one of the songs sung by students at R. D. White Elementary School on Thursday as part of a musical performance with a recycling theme. Students acted out the song about recycling large electronics like TVs, in addition to more familiar recyclables like plastic and cardboard, calling on their peers not to “junk up the Earth,” teacher specialist Jennifer Epstein said. Epstein coordinates the after-school musical theater group, which performed for students during a morning assembly.

Mountain Avenue Elementary first grader Kathy Mendoza listened to her teacher, Laurie McFarlane, talk about the importance of recycling. Her teacher shared a story about a fourth grader, Blake Omartian, who was recycling to raise money for the Mountain Avenue sixth grade trip to Washington, D.C. Kathy decided she wanted to do something to help Blake. She went to her grandmother who, along with a family friend, agreed to save their recyclables for Blake. ?I thought it would be a nice way to help him go to Washington,?

For the seven "green-friendly" Daily High School students who hauled away old electronics from Muir Elementary School for recycling Thursday, saving the environment was second to being part of something positive. The high school's environmental science club — an energized subset of the class of the same name — made their final visit to Muir Elementary on Thursday to pick up recyclable plastics and electronics as part of the Cartridges for Kids program. Their booty included an old VCR, more than 100 batteries of various sizes, about 150 ink cartridges, two broken computers and more than 30 cellphones.

Tim Willert GLENDALE CITY HALL -- More than a decade of recycling has paid off for the city and has extended the life of the Scholl Canyon landfill. Glendale is one of 17 cities in Los Angeles County that have met or exceeded the state's 50% waste diversion requirement. In 2000, the city diverted 52% of waste generated within its boundaries away from the landfill. Public Works Director Kerry Morford, whose department first embarked on a waste diversion program in the late 1980s, praised the community for its contributions.

Gary Moskowitz The school district might be able to save a few thousand dollars this year by adopting a new system of recycling and disposing of waste products. By changing its service provider from the Glendale-based Southland Disposal to a new contract with Consolidated Waste Management, the Glendale Unified School District could reduce its annual waste disposal costs by about 20% each year, and in the process, recycle more materials than it has in the past, according to reports.

Now that the holidays are officially over, city workers are busy collecting discarded Christmas trees and recycling them through Jan. 15. Single-family residents throughout Glendale are encouraged to leave their trees curbside by 7 a.m. on their scheduled trash collection day. Residents of multi-family homes and businesses should call the city's Integrated Waste Management section at 548-3916 to schedule a day. Trees...

Glendale residents should be patting themselves on the back these days following word that the city has reached a critical goal set by the state. As of this year, more than 50% of the city's trash is being diverted from Scholl Canyon landfill through recycling and other methods. The state had asked all California municipalities to achieve the 50% mark by 2000. Today, only about 20% to 30% of the state's cities have hit that mark. A lot of effort went into achieving this milestone.

I am a seventh-grader at St. Bede Elementary School in La Cañada. I am trying to bring awareness to the benefits of recycling to your readers. The seventh-graders at St. Bede School have worked hard this week to recycle $68 worth of cans. Our class wants your readers to know that you can also make a big difference in your community by recycling. You can make the world a better place if you recycle because you will conserve energy and save valuable landfill space that is greatly needed by the city of Glendale.

Wondering what to do with your political lawn signs when Tuesday's municipal election is all said and done? Unless you want them as keepsakes, city officials say the signs are indeed recyclable. The signs can be placed in gray recycling containers, but wood posts should go in the green yard trimming containers, said city spokesman Tom Lorenz. Signs can stay on private property as long as owners want, but if code enforcement officials find signs on public property, they will be removed.

The eighth annual Taste of Downtown Burbank takes place Thursday evening on San Fernando Road. More than 40 restaurants are slated to take part in the event, which is scheduled from 5:30 to 9:30 p.m. between Magnolia Boulevard and Olive Avenue. Motorists, however, should note that street closures on San Fernando begin at 6:30 a.m. Thursday from Magnolia to Palm Avenue, said Gail Stewart, business district manager for the city's redevelopment department. Palm to Orange Grove will close at 10 a.m. The street closures will remain in effect until about midnight, she said.

East Los Angeles is moving closer to becoming its own city despite mounting cost concerns and implications of cityhood, Curbed LA reported.  Officials released the final version of the East Los Angeles Comprehensive Fiscal Analysis late last week, which questioned the financial viability of East LA becoming a city.   Recycling raises income of poor households One Occidental College professor's research suggets that recycling bottles and cans could be a significant source of income for poor people given states set their bottle-deposit refunds high enough.

The sound of computer monitors thumping into large cardboard bins was music to the ears of Hoover High School band members Saturday, as the school's music program held its first e-waste recycling event. Students, instructor Martin Rhees and booster Mike Risner greeted donors as they pulled into the parking lot on Glenwood Road, helping to haul monitors, old TVs, VCRs and the occasional leaf blower out of car trunks and into the bins. "Business is steady," Risner said, noting that the state pays a bounty on monitors and tube TVs. The band will get 60% of the proceeds of Saturday's event, with the rest going to the school's partner, ewastefundraising.

The Landskin exhibition at the Brand Library Art Galleries in Glendale is a collective effort by four artists who explore through sculpture, painting, and printmaking, organic and artificial environments. The artists, Sophia Allison, Autumn Harrision, Li'n Lee and Jaime Ursic, have recycled materials that have had some relationship to the environment, either positive or negative, and form new creations, some with organic roots and reality, and some with plastic (inorganic) materials and imagination.

From quirky to cute, employees at Yahoo! Search Marketing in Burbank brought more than 50 ceramic mugs from home and donated them to the company’s “Mugstock” project. The idea came from the company’s Green Team, employees who meet once a month to plan ways to protect the environment in the workplace. There were different shapes, sizes and colors donated to the effort. One mug had the words El Salvador, Central America with two houses each topped with a terracotta roof.

CITY HALL — Glendale has exceeded an ambitious citywide recycling goal two years earlier than expected, officials said. For the past 10 years, at least 50% of all city waste was diverted from landfills through an assortment of city recycling programs, according to state law. But in 2006, Public Works officials challenged the city to bump up the so-called waste diversion rate to 60% by the end of 2011. Calculations on trash and recycling levels show that the city diverted 61% of all trash from landfills in 2009, according to figures released Friday.

The City Council on Tuesday approved a $300,000, six-month contract extension with Downtown Diversion Inc. for recovering recyclable materials from waste generated at Glendale Water & Power facilities. Under state law, the utility is required to divert waste from landfills. WHAT IT MEANS The additional funding is needed to cover a higher-than-expected amount of debris and recyclable materials.   Communications facility The City Council introduced an ordinance authorizing the city to enter into a new agreement with STC One LLC. for an existing telecommunications facility on Pasa Glen Drive near the Glendale Sports Complex.