For residential customers of Pacific Coast Disposal curbside pickup is available. Contact Pacific Coast for details.  Commercial customers of Pacific Coast are entitled to an additional dumpster for use as a single-stream recycling bin.  This would include cardboard and all other recyclable items. Call Pacific Coast for arrangements.

Those of you who are self-haulers and must travel out to the Transfer Station on Fish Rock Rd. to recycle should consider the Drop-off depot at Arena Cove.  The unattended facility is open 24/7 and receives all the same items as at the County Transfer Station.

One difference, however, is that at the Cove facility we ask that you separate out the CA CASH-labeled redemption items.  The reason that we ask this is that we redeem these items and this money is used to support the existence of the Drop-off. In the year 2002 we had $9000 in sales of these containers, all of which went into the pier budget. If these containers had been placed in the single-stream bins along with the non-redemption items, that $9000 would have gone to Pacific Coast Disposal who, by contract, must haul away the non-redemption bins for the City at no cost.  It should be noted that ALL recyclable items brought to the Drop-off are recycled regardless of who hauls them.

All redemption containers are marked CA CASH (though not always obviously) on the label.  This includes virtually all beverage containers of any size. Even the 2-½ gal. water containers have redemption value.  There are some big exceptions. They are primarily milk and liquor containers.  These two large industry groups have successfully lobbied our legislators and have been granted exemption from the CA CASH program.  That does not mean that these containers cannot be recycled.  It only means that there is no deposit paid on them at the time of purchase and no redemption value is given for them at time of disposal.  Therefore, all booze and milk containers go in the non-redemption bin along with cat food cans, mayonnaise jars, shampoo bottles, pie tins, etc.  This includes both waxed milk cartons and the HDPE plastic jugs.  Please rinse them first. We are running at recycling center, not a cheese factory.  Once again, the best way to figure out if a container is a CA CASH bottle or can is to examine the label.

What is accepted locally is basically household containers and paper products.  Household containers include glass, steel, and plastic. Paper products include cardboard, office paper, junk mail (first remove plastic wrappers if any), magazines, newspaper, and catalogs.  It DOES NOT include waxed cardboard, tissue paper (can you believe people would try to recycle toilet paper?), and bound books.

There are an inexhaustible number of things in our consumer society that cannot be recycled. That’s a big problem we should all contemplate. In the meantime, though, many things are brought to the drop-off because people would like to think that they are recyclable, but are not. They include used baby diapers, window glass, all forms of Styrofoam, plastic toys, sheet plastic (Visqueen, leaf bags, vacuum packs, baggies), and CD’s. Also, there are items that can be recycled, but don’t belong in a container recycling facility such as ours. These include tires, scrap metal, old TV’s, plumbing plastics, used oil, and wood. Most of these things are accepted at the Transfer station.

Point Arena has a used oil recycling program.  It is not located at the Recycling Drop-off. See the link on the Point Arena homepage for details.

Two kinds of plastic bags ARE recyclable, but not at our facility.  Grocery store bags can be recycled.  These are the Number 2 HDPE bags commonly called “carry bags” by the grocery industry and Number 4 LDPE vegetable bags.  The number 2’s are generally white and the number 4’s are generally clear.  They are both usually marked with the number inside the recycling triangle.  The reason that they are not accepted by us, but can be recycled at nearly every major grocery store is that they require a special low temperature processing and cannot be processed with other types of recyclable plastic.  So either take them to a grocery store when you go or always ask for paper and then you can recycle the paper bags at the City Drop-off along with all the other paper.

Companies that process our recyclables try to keep the contamination (they call it “filth”) to around 5%.  It is a marginally profitable industry to begin with and the more difficult we make it for them, the more we discourage recycling in general. Use a little common sense.  I know most people would like to think about recycling as little as possible.  Many consider recycling a good idea, but a little beneath them.

They would like to think that there is some entity out there that will take that old pair of shoes out of their recycling bag; or that it is fine to recycle a tomato sauce jar with several tablespoons of tomato sauce still in it.  Who cares if that jar fills with mold in a few days?  The same goes for mayonnaise jars or BBQ sauce. How about a cardboard box with lots of duct tape around it? Do people really think that duct tape is recyclable?  Or do they figure that there is someone who removes all that duct tape before recycling.  Not.  Don’t assume that you are doing the right thing just because you think you are.  Please don’t kid yourself; contaminated items go into the landfill. You don’t need to wash jars clean, but a few ounces of water (it doesn’t need to be clean water) swished around in a jar makes the difference between a jar that will be recycled and one that won’t.  Try to believe that recycling is your responsibility, not someone else’s.

Other common items improperly placed in recycling containers include pizza boxes that have lots of grease soaked into them (or that last piece of pizza), motor oil bottles that have not been drained of the last ounce of oil, cardboard boxes with Styrofoam glued inside, soda bottles that haven’t been.