Memories on Memorial Day - By George Kahumoku
For our move from Maui to Santa Cruz CA we packed a lot of our stuff in paper, styrofoam peanuts, bubble wrap and cardboard boxes. We unloaded our stuff from two storage units that fit into a double car garage at our new home at 145 Old Adobe Rd in Watsonville CA 95076.
For our move from Maui to Santa Cruz, CA, we packed a lot of our stuff in paper, Styrofoam peanuts, bubble wrap, and cardboard boxes. We unloaded our stuff from two storage units that fit into a double-car garage at our new home at 145 Old Adobe Rd. in Watsonville, CA 95076.
Our home is located about .5 miles east on the Buena Vista turnoff by HWY 1 in Watsonville.
We had truckloads of cardboard paper, styrofoam & styrofoam peanuts to discard. We filled our 3 household recycled bins full of just a few cardboard boxes & paper and styrofoam. Monday was pickup day as well as Memorial Day. A recycle driver dropped off a huge recycling truck told me about the recycling center at the Buena Vista landfill located a mile east on Buena Vista from our new home.
My first visit to the Buena Vista landfill on Memorial Day was truly a day to remember!
It was so exciting for me, like a kid at the candy store! It was like visiting the Holy Grail of recycling & an eye-filling and nose-filling experience of a lifetime. Bottles were separated not only from the trash, but they were sorted by color! There was green glass, and clear glass, and blue glass, and brown glass separated into different colored glass bins!
Even their cardboard machine was the bomb to look at and hear it being operated! It had a huge bin and a beltway for accepting cardboard that moved the cardboard up a ramp onto an operator who fed it into a compactor that compacted it, making huge bales of cardboard, and the machine secured the cardboard bales with bale wire, looking like huge bales of hay!
Next to the cardboard compactor was a bin for putting in paper and paper products and sorting out paper
I got lost for a moment looking for the landfill garbage section of the landfill for our styrofoam insulation, peanuts, and bubble wrap.
On my way up the roadway to the mountain of trash, I saw hundreds of seagulls scavenging through the trash following a huge bulldozer. I also saw mountains of drywall stacked separately from anything else. There was also another mountain of pallets that was being ground up into sawdust and a huge magnet attracting out the metal nails. Next to that was a huge tub grinder grinding up tree branches and whole trees into wood and leaf mulch green waste!
Then there was even an area for dropping off separate piles of metal, appliances of all kinds, propane tanks, and milk jugs.
There was also a girl dressed and covered up from head to toe with a mask on, giving directions as to where to back up your vehicle to unload your trash! The smell was unbearable, with hints of rotten garbage aroma and methane gas in the air.
Nearby, huge demolition tractors were running over furniture, hard and soft plastics and piling them up into an even bigger mountain.
On my way down the hill, I came across bins for car batteries with acid and bins with batteries without acid.
All I say is California is serious about recycling & sorting out its green and all kinds of waste!
It was surely a memorable experience at the Buena Vista Landfill on Memorial Day!
George Kahumoku Jr
808-280-9948
Georgekahumoku@gmail.com
