June19, 2006
By Dylan Skriloff
Used blue jeans turned into pencils; used plastic turned into t-shirts; sewage and glass sand turned into rich soil; such are the innovations in recycling taking place right here in Rockland County under the province of the Solid Waste Management Authority.
Ramapo Town Supervisor and Chairman of SWMA, Christopher P. St. Lawrence introduced the winners of this year’s Second Annual Rockland Recycles Awards on June 15 at the RBA’s General Membership Luncheon at the Holiday Inn Hotel and Conference Center in Suffern.
You didn’t have to look further than the flowers on the tables to see how waste could be recycled. They were potted in the glass/sewage compost soil and all looked quite healthy.
St. Lawrence presented trophies made of recycled materials to this year’s winners; Clarkstown Central School District, Nyack Hospital and Verizon Wireless. The Waste Wise Selection Committee, which is chaired by RBA CEO and President Al Samuels, selected the winners.
"Rockland’s programs are being replicated across the country. We have cutting edge leadership in so many places," Samuels said.
"We are thrilled that for the second consecutive year all three recipients of the Rockland Recycle Awards are members of the Rockland Business Association and are proud to have socially-responsible businesses in our Association," he added.
St. Lawrence said the Waste Authority, which he’s chaired since 1998, is helping Rockland’s waste facilities become a regional hub for the industry. It not only is taking care of Rockland County, but areas of Orange and Bergen County, as well. Its lower rates for disposal attract the business, which both saves neighboring counties money and brings money into Rockland.
St. Lawrence touted the Household Hazardous Waste disposal facility adjacent to the Ramapo Fire Training Center, which safely disposes of batteries, paints and other toxic materials that could otherwise end up in ground water. When it opened only mere hundreds of people used the facility annually. By last year over 17,000 had used the facility.
St. Lawrence’s presentation was far from ordinary. He began the speech with the invocation that "there are higher powers" and noted that Pope Benedict the XVI’s recent encyclical was titled "God is Love." He urged all employers to tell their staffers how much they valued their service and that they indeed, loved them.
He likened the political mission of the RBA, to better the State’s business environment, to that of the Spartans of Ancient Greece at the Battle of Thermopylae. Circumstance had left the Spartans and a few allies with only 300 warriors to fend off a Persian force of hundreds of thousands. Though they lost the battle, they successfully held off the Persian long enough to allow Greek troops time to regroup.
Tom O’Reilly, owner of Solar Engineering in Pearl River and long-time environmental activist said he loved the presentation. "I recycle everything. I remember doing paper drives when I was a Boy Scout," he said.
Robin Gardner and Erin Hornback of Globe Institute of Technology said they were really interested in new ways to recycle. "We love this kind of stuff," Gardner said.
Other members of the Waste Wise Award Selection Committee include Kathy Gallione of Americorps, Terri Laibach of NYSDEC, Steve Porath of REDC and Kerri Scales of SWMA. Andrew T. Lehman is the Executive Director of SWMA.
Last year’s winners of the Rockland Recycles Awards were O&R Utilities, SUNY Rockland Community College and Wyeth Pharmaceuticals.
More About This Year’s Honorees
"We really did try to 'reduce, reuse and recycle,'" said David H. Freed, President and CEO of Nyack Hospital.
Specific steps Nyack Hospital took to improve recycling included an innovate metals recycling partnership between the Authority and the Hospital, the closing of its medical waste incinerator and the strengthening of its "Universal Waste Program" to pull out toxics from its waste stream and recycle as much as possible.
As a result the Hospital recycled over 30 tons of scrap metal, four tons of electronics, one ton of lead batteries and over 3,100 tons of cardboard. In real world terms this equals over 5 miles of fluorescent tubes, 10,000 little batteries and 50,000 trees.
A stand was set up in the back of the ballroom displaying a myriad of products that could be made from recycled material. T-shirts, carpeting, pencils were all on display as was more information on the recycling services available in Rockland County.
Other members of Nyack Hospital’s staff who were cited for the honor were John Voltano, Vice President for Support Services, Michael Miksad, Administrator of Facilities, Walter Dusselldorp, Safety Officer and Eileen Slattery, Assistant to Mr. Miksad.
Superintendent Dr. William B. Heebink accepted the award on behalf of Clarkstown Central School District. Waste Wise cited several positive actions the district took including inviting the Waste Authority to a County-wide business managers meeting, arranging meetings with all district building custodians, launching a system wide recycling campaign, training kitchen staff on metal recycling and entering into an Intermunicipal Agreement to being recyclables to Authority MRF.
For over eight years their students have taken part in "Kids for a cleaner environment," collecting recyclables and volunteering annually with the Keep Rockland Beautiful campaign. In all, over 60 tons of paper, cardboard, plastic bottles and metal cans were recycled from the district last year alone.
Other members of the Clarkstown staff that were honored included Anthony Cashara, Business Manager, Alita Zuber, Assistant Business Manager, Frank Stefanelli, Facilities Director, Tony Dario, District Custodial Superintendent and Loretta Adams, School Board Member.
Rocky Lynn, Telesales Director, accepted the WasteWise recycling award on behalf of Verizon Wireless. Lynn helps run the Verizon Hopeline program which gives cellular phones that would otherwise have been thrown out, to victims of domestic violence. Verizon has been working with Rockland for 15 years, specifically with the Rockland Family Shelter. The program has provided over $100,000 in grants and phones to victims of violence.
Verizon has also worked with the SWMA at the Household Hazardous Waste Facility, where they take old cellular phones and recycle them properly. Verizon recently adapted a Waste Reduction Program that uses the Internet for billing statements, saving 800 million sheets of paper and 240,000 pounds of ink annually. The company has collected and recycled nearly 150,000 pounds of batteries.
In real world terms Verizon’s efforts have saved over 11,000 trees, enough paper to wrap around the Earth nine times. The 175,000 recycled cell phones equal the weight of 242 adult black bears.
"This is a very special acknowledgement of Verizon’s efforts," Lynn said.
Other key Rockland-people in the program who were at the event include David Samberg, Director of the NY Metro area recycling programs and HopeLine Initiatives, Linda Lafflin and Chris Corvino, handlers of recycling education and Dawn Lardin, manager of a communications store where cellular phones are accepted for recycling.
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