RECYCLING FACTS

In a lifetime, the average American will throw away an estimated 600 times his or her adult weight in garbage. For a 200-pound adult, that would be 120,000 pounds – or 60 tons – of trash.

Gold Coast Recycling, in its 30 years, has recovered thousands of tons of fiber materials (paper, cardboard, etc.), saving millions of trees.

Gold Coast Recycling has recovered more than 580 million pounds of materials for recycling.

Since 1990, Gold Coast Recycling has made its sole business the advancement of recycling practices in Ventura County.

In 2018, the world of recycling shifted, for everyone, when new restrictions took effect in China, which had controlled virtually the entire global recycling market. According to the new standards, recycled items must be prohibitively clean, to within 0.5 percent contamination.

At Gold Coast, we responded in 2019 with a major systems upgrade, including a state-of-the-art recyclable material sorting system, which uses screens and optical sensor air technology to separate materials. Additional updated systems prepare the materials for transport.


HOW YOU CAN HELP

Effective recycling programs always begin with you, the consumer.

Keep it clean and loose: To accommodate the new, stricter recycling standards, we ask that you take extra care to be sure ALL items you recycle are in fact recyclable and are free of food and other nonrecyclable materials. And please, NO PLASTIC BAGS. Toss all recyclables loose into your barrels and bins.

Learn what NOT to recycle: No synthetic packaging. No diapers. No waxed cardboard. No plastic bags. … There’s a lot we can recycle, and there’s a lot we cannot. Please learn what is NOT recyclable. Click here for a complete list of what we do and do not accept.

Above all, avoid plastic: Synthetic materials are the demon in the recycling world. Bubble wrap, Styrofoam and plastic bags are at the top of a long list of synthetics that are the big enemy in sustainability efforts: items that are nonrecyclable and widely used. The packing material can be blamed on the so-called “Amazon effect” – in which countless boxed products delivered to our businesses and homes often contain nonrecyclable packaging. But the plastics problem extends far beyond that, to include such everyday items as straws, disposable utensils, sandwich and trash bags, and on and on. Please avoid using nonrecyclable items. When you must use them, dispose of them in your REGULAR TRASH BIN.