Matt Showers is filling barrels at Recycling Industries on Power Inn Road.
"I'd like to say I'm a good environmentalist, but that's really kind of my whole reason for recycling is because I really need the extra cash right now, uh, grad student."
Cal Recycle says 82 percent of cans and bottles were recycled
last year. The percentage has never been higher.
Recyclers pay consumers who pay retailers who pay distributors
who paid the state's CRV program 1 point 2 billion dollars last
year. The recyclers sell the recyclables to plants who make
new bottles and cans.
Just a word to the wise. So-called convenience centers
typically offer something very close to the state mandated minimum
of a dollar-fifty-four per pound for aluminum. Scrap yards
like Recycling Industries are currently paying 2 dollars a
pound.