Duarte Schools and Businesses Honored
for Recycling Programs with LARA
San Gabriel Valley Green Awards
DUARTE, CA, May 5, 2011 – Two Duarte schools and two Duarte businesses were recognized for their outstanding recycling programs by the Los Angeles Regional Agency (LARA) at the annual San Gabriel Valley Green Awards presented May 4 at the Garvey Community Center in Rosemead.
Among organizations honored were Duarte Unified School District’s Valley View Elementary School and Mt. Olive High School, and Duarte businesses Fresh & Easy and We Pack It All.
LARA is a consortium of 17 member cities in Los Angeles County, which includes the City of Duarte, whose mission is to assist members in meeting and exceeding the 50% waste diversion mandates of State Assembly Bill 939. The diversion rate of the LARA consortium is currently 75%.
Valley View Elementary School was honored for its various school-wide recycling programs that encourage the entire school community to participate. Recyclables collected each week include four large bins of paper, as well as bottles, cans, cafeteria cereal bowls and juice pouches. In addition, cafeteria food scraps are composted to help enrich the soil in the school’s educational garden. Valley View has also recently added a worm composter that uses food scraps to make worm tea for the garden.
Mt. Olive High School students have become champions of the environment through the innovative and award-winning Mt. Olive Outdoor Science Experience (MOOSE) program. Students plant native foliage, perform ongoing upkeep of the pond ecosystem and garden, conduct field experiments and observations, construct raised beds, build solar water features and run drip irrigation. The main focus of MOOSE is to teach students and the community how to solve some of the world’s current environmental challenges through water conservation, vermiculture, organic farming, urban horticulture, ethnobotany and recycling while training them for green careers.
We Pack It All, a co-packer company, utilizes certified organic materials for packing. Materials left over from packing are recycled. The company recycles an average of 67,200 lbs of cardboard a month and another 50,000 pounds of cardboard bundles at the end of the year, as well as 2,560 lbs of pallets a month; four 40 yard bins a month in recycled plastic, two 3 yard bins of paper a month, and 1,200 pounds of foil backing a year.
Fresh & Easy, which opened its doors in Duarte in January 2009, recycles or reuses all its shipping and display materials and uses environmentally-friendly trailers to transport food. The company is a pilot member of the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Volume Certification Program and has invested in a 500,000 square foot solar roof installation on its distribution center.
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