The Ripon City Council directed staff Tuesday to prepare a resolution adopting the proposed subsidy of the recycling program benefiting local elementary school students.
The price of certain recyclables such as cardboard has dropped significantly in recent months, according to Engineering Supervisor James Pease.
The hope is to maintain a price of $60 per ton of cardboard processed by the Ripon Unified School District volunteers at the Ripon Recycle Center.
“This is a great resource for our schools,” Councilman Daniel de Graaf said at the monthly session.
According to Pease, the City along with RUSD and American Recycling have a unique recycling program that benefits local kids.
“The recycling program has been in place for 15 years and has multiple benefits,” he said of the program that operates with a combination of volunteers organized by the Parent Faculty Club given the limited City personnel.
RUSD receives the proceeds from the recycled contents – included are aluminum cans, CRV bottles and cardboard – which is then distributed evenly among each of the RUSD elementary school sites.
The City, in turn, receives the benefit of claiming credit for the recycled solid waste that’s being diverted from the landfill, which is a regulatory requirement set by California Department of Resources Recycling and Recovery or CalRecycle.
CalRecycle calculates and sets an annual target of the number of pounds per person per day of disposal waste that goes into the landfill, Pease noted.
Each City has a different target amount calculated using base figures from when the program began with the implementation of the California Integrated Waste Management Act of 1989.
Pease pointed out that the City of Ripon is currently in good standings and is below the targeted amount set by CalRecycle.
“This is in part due to the amount of material recycled at the recycling center that would otherwise end up in the landfill,” he said.
While the Ripon Recycling Center accepts a number of different materials, only certain recyclable items receive revenue – the price varies monthly.
The price drop for certain items are directly related to China’s restriction on the import of certain recyclable material.
