MAILBAG: Waste Management is doing the best it can

Recently there has been a number of letters regarding the service provided by Waste Management. I’m fortunate to live on a street that receives the full service, and I make the most of that service. In fact, I can often be found rummaging through other people’s trash taking recyclables out of the trash and vice versa!

We live in a unique and beautiful place. The steep hills and narrow winding streets add to the character of the town but also make it very difficult for Waste Management to operate here.

Waste Management can only collect our waste from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m., which can be a hard task especially in summer with our traffic problems. Waste Management’s most experienced drivers are assigned to our town, which is understandable considering some of the maneuvers they have to make, such as backing along steep, narrow streets or swinging out into Coast Highway to back down a street that has no turnaround area.

I sympathize with the individuals who don’t receive the full service. However, we shouldn’t see Waste Management as the bad guys. They are working hard to recycle everything they can — after all they pay a fortune to dump trash in the landfill but they sell recyclables so it makes perfect business sense for them to collect as much recycling as possible. In fact, we don’t pay Waste Management to collect our recycling, they only get paid to collect the trash. The recycling collection is complimentary.

Waste Management has increased the range of recyclable items accepted: any type of paper you can tear. Plastics: if it looks/feels like plastic it can go in the recycling, even plastic toys. All foil, aluminum cans, steel cans, even aerosols. We can now even put plastic bags in the recycling, stuff them all into one bag so as not to jam the machines, or just take bags with you to the store.

Since it makes good economic sense for Waste Management to collect more recyclables and less trash, why are there streets that only get a trash service? Waste Management drivers do not want to have accidents, damage your property or cause injury. In fact, since Waste Management identified the special routes and cut down the service to only one collection on those streets the number of accidents reduced by about 700%.

Let us also get an idea of the scale of the problem, how many curbside stops do not get a recycle pickup? Only about 275 out of 10,000 or less that’s 3%. I can guarantee that a greater percentage of residents who receive the service do not utilize it.

As I have said, I love to recycle, but let’s consider the bigger picture and accept that we don’t live in a perfect world. Would the fuel used to service these special streets with small capacity trucks have a greater negative impact on the environment? Would the money and time be better spent on recycle trash bins at our beaches and downtown, and on educating and encouraging the residents who do receive the full service to use it?

My point is that Waste Management is not perfect but they are working on improving the service. Are you always working on reducing the trash and recycling that you generate?

If you have ideas that could solve this recycling collection problem please let me know at maxisles@gmail.com

MAX ISLES

Laguna Beach

Rosen deserving of Woman of the Year

I am delighted the Woman’s Club of Laguna Beach has selected Bree Burgess Rosen as its Woman of the Year 2008. If you are one of Bree’s many friends or admirers, you won’t want to miss the luncheon in her honor at 11 a.m. June 6 at the Woman’s Club. Tickets are $40 and must be purchased in advance. Mail checks to LB Woman’s Club, 286 St. Ann’s Drive, or call (949) 497-2000.

Having been fortunate enough to work with Bree in Lagunatics, I know first hand that this extremely talented woman is also the embodiment of community commitment and volunteerism. As founder of No Square Theatre, and co-writer and director of its inimitable “roast of the coast” Lagunatics, she keeps community theater going strong in Laguna Beach.

What many people may not know is that Bree donates a good part of the money she raises to support countless local charities, including Laguna’s Ebell Club; Community Clinic; AIDS Services Foundation (Splash!); Laguna Shanti; Ballet Pacifica; Laguna Playhouse; Senior Center Building Fund; Laguna Beach Woman’s Club, and the Laguna Beach High School’s Artist Theater. During the 16 years Lagunatics has been running, she has raised more than $800,000 for charity from that show alone.

I could go on about her work with children through El Morro Elementary school and the Pacific Symphony’s Family concerts, or her awards for public service, which include the State of Nevada’s Humanitarian of the Year award; past President George H.W. Bush’s “Point of Light” award for her work as co-founder and past president of Golden Rainbow of Nevada, a nonprofit organization providing low-cost housing for persons with AIDS; or being named Citizen of the Year in 2007 by our own Patriot’s Day Parade. Rather than do that, I invite you to join the fun when we honor Bree at the luncheon.

MARION JACOBS

Laguna Beach