Northern California city considers banning new recycling centers from opening
CITRUS HEIGHTS – The city of Citrus Heights is rethinking recycling while California is spending millions to try to get more people to recycle.
While recycling centers are a convenient place for people to get cash back for their bottles and cans, the city of Citrus Heights is considering banning new ones from opening.
"So our recommendation is to keep the four we have. Let them operate and not have any more at this time," said Citrus Heights Community Development Director Casey Kempenaar.
The city says they've received neighborhood complaints about trash, loitering and abandoned shopping carts.
"The city's been working really hard on cleaning up blight and some of the challenges we face and we're making a lot of progress with that," Kempenaar said.
The city even set up surveillance cameras to track the businesses and found there are often long lines of people bringing in used containers.
"Appearances of the centers are something that is not as desirable as other uses," Kempenaar said.
"It's disappointing and shortsighted on the part of Citrus Heights," said Mark Murry, executive director for Californians Against Waste.
Recycling advocates say more of these businesses are needed across the state to meet consumer demand.
"In Sacramento County, only 58% of the beverage containers are returned for recycling. Not only is there not enough recycling centers, but when you find one that's open, you have to wait in line," Murry said.
The proposed ban comes at a time when there's a statewide effort to promote more recycling.
"The state of California has just pushed out $73 million in grants to fund new recycling centers and now that money won't be available to Citrus Heights," Murry said.
Advocates say these facilities are important in making sure recyclable materials don't end up in a landfill.
"Recovering this material, it's then available to make new materials and new products," Murry said.
The Citrus Heights city council was scheduled to discuss the ban at Wednesday's city council meeting but it was postponed last minute to a future date.