The county is shutting down the Recycle-town North location at the Healdsburg Transfer Station as of Oct. 31.
The reuse center adjacent to the station north of town is set to close at the end of the month, but patrons and workers are protesting the closure.
Advocates for the operation will show up at the County Board of Supervisors meeting in Santa Rosa on Oct. 26 to demand the reuse business stay open.
There are also a few petitions going around the county asking for residents to sign their support and a petition at the site. The on-site petition was filled with 250 names as of Oct. 19.
Joel Fox works at Recycle-town, operated by nonprofit Garbage Reincarnations, and said the reasons for the shutdown are unsound.
“They say we have hazmat all over the place,” Fox said. “One of the problems here is, of course, there’s no hazmat station. So people come here looking to get rid of their hazmat and they just slip it off.”
Recycle-town consists of a few rows of items from books to wood smokers for sale in covered or tented spaces just to the left when reaching the transfer station.
Fox pointed to the surrounding hilly countryside, noting there were many places where illegal dumping can occur and go unnoticed.
Fox said there were also claims that items had stayed too long, and that certain items, such as metal, were placed on the ground. Runoff is the concern for these pieces, as rain can move rust and other hazards into the ground.
Fox said these things do happen but normally for a limited time and often only initially if something is dropped off improperly. He also said there were paint cans on the ground that someone had noticed, though he stated they were in the middle of being used to paint a storage container.
He said no one from the county has come in person to address the issues or notify him of the closure.
“No one has come and said, ‘Hey, you guys I want to come over and show you something,’” Fox said, referring to alleged violations.
A request for comment from the county on the issue was unreturned as of press time.
This closure would end a community asset, Fox and other customers said.
Paul Bernier has been coming to the reuse area throughout its iterations over the last few decades. He said he’s saved money buy buying a variety of used items, such as all the glass he needed to sun dry his prunes, roughly a half ton a year.
He also said that Recycle-town is where he had gotten many of his grandchildren’s bikes, as well as t-posts, metal posts commonly used for fencing. The t-posts, Fox said, were especially popular and almost as if to prove his point, a customer came up and asked him where the t-posts were.
Fox said the example of the t-post wasn’t just illustrative of customer demand but also the efficiency of reuse versus recycle. If the t-posts were shipped to be recycled, they would likely travel to China, he said, and then come back across the Pacific as new posts after being smelted. Not only does recycling come with waste from the smelting, Fox said the greenhouse gases produced from transporting the metal was counterproductive to the green goals of the Three Rs (recycle, reuse, reduce).
“Talk about the carbon footprint on that,” Bernier said.
“We believe in what we’re doing here,” Fox said. “We’re working up here for minimum wage with volunteers to help us.”
Fox said the store resells about a ton a week of reusable goods, which otherwise could end up in landfills.
Another regular customer, Richard Ochoa, has written the county to ask for help in making the shop compliant with environmental laws.
“Please note that many Californians are living on small, fixed incomes and this is a very valuable resource to help assist in their living expenses,” he wrote.
He noted that he had purchased a washing machine at Recycle-town for $20. When he saw the same model new at a big box store, it cost $1,000.
Ochoa suggested a crowdfunding page to help cover the costs of maintaining the area and for the county to direct funding to build storage areas that could more easily meet environmental compliance.
Ted Wilde, another longtime customer, said he gets a lot of his furniture from the store, as well as dropping some off. He said there are fewer resale places like Goodwill or Salvation Army that he has access to for larger items than there had been.
Fox said his customers come from all walks of life, from artists to antique dealers to construction workers.
Fox believes there are other reasons for a closure as opposed to assistance to get up to code. First, he said, as the county is no longer directly involved in the recycling business, it no longer advocates for reuse of items. In addition, as trash and recycling companies run the station — Republic, from Arizona, and Recology, from San Francisco — and are paid by weight for waste coming in, there is little incentive to keep Recycle-town open as it cuts into the revenue stream.
“The garbage companies, to them, if we’re not here, all that stuff that we take in is income,” Fox said.
The minimum charge for dumping at the transfer station is $30, Fox said. The reuse store is not supplemented by the recycling center.
Though the deadline will be close between the shut down and the final supervisor meeting of the month, patrons are hopeful.
“There has to be some pushback,” Bernier said. “This is too important of a community resource.”
