Maricopans line up to recycle trash

At 7:30 a.m. – 90 minutes before opening – there was a line of cars waiting to get into the Recycling Association of Maricopa for the tire recycling and household hazardous waste event, executive director of Environmental Concerns Organization, Inc., Gina D’Abella said.

“Step into my office,” she added. She sat near an old picnic table, an office shaded by a tree. A rooster crowed in a cage, black trash bags filled with soon-to-be-Goodwill clothes formed a pile nearby. Cars were directed to their designated stations.

“What we can control is these events,” D’Abella said. “Getting people to come here and do the right thing with their tires.”

Every Saturday, the Recycling Association of Maricopa takes almost everything at 46250 W. McDavid Road. But this Saturday it held an event that also took tires and household hazardous waste like paints and motor oils.

“That’s our biggest challenge here is tires,” D’Abella said. “Occasionally I’ll find motor oil and paint in the desert. Tires are the biggest problem.”

After residents dropped off their recyclables at the event, the Recycling Association of Maricopa sorts the hazardous materials, electronics, appliances and scrap metals, as well as the plastic, paper and glass separated by green, white and then brown to be taken away by the companies that specialize in recycling those specific objects.

“The electronics go to Westech Recyclers, all the appliances and scrap metal goes to Phoenix Metal Recycling,” D’Abella said. “All of our glass goes to two different locations: One is proprietary … being used for industrial insulation, the brown glass goes to a place called Strategic Materials. All of our plastics go to Recycle 1. All of our paper goes to a place called Green Fiber.”

No other city in the state of Arizona has a nonprofit doing what the Recycling Association of Maricopa does, D’Abella said. Always a struggle to find the money to continue with the program and event, D’Abella has been doing this for 15 years.

“Every other city has programs for this,” D’Abella said. “They don’t have a nonprofit corporation running their waste transfer station, running their household hazardous waste and tires.”