-By Warner Todd Huston
As California looks to initiate a “no waste” policy, a look at the statistics of landfills in and around the San Bernadino area shows that many have either seriously slowed their garbage intake for burial or only increased it slightly. That is, all except the landfills operated by Athens Services, all of which seem to have exceedingly high growth in landfill use. Now some residents are worrying that, unlike the other waste disposal companies, the Athens landfills are burying items that could otherwise be recycled in accordance with state and local laws.
At the same time this is happening, some California counties are aiming at what they call a ”no waste” policy, meaning that practically all garbage will be recycled somehow or another. Despite this far-fetched concept and the unlikely hood of reaching such a goal, most of the state is still slowly edging toward less and less use of landfills.
Certainly, most residents don’t think about garbage after it’s tossed. But, with large tax dollars being spent on waste disposal, residents across the country should look at their service providers.
Here’s why: Athens Services, a West Covina garbage service, seems to be going in the opposite direction of all the others in the area by increasing landfill use and residents want to know why this is happening.
Athens Services, in San Bernardino County, the company somehow increasing landfill use despite that other services in the same area are decreasing it, is also in some trouble. The company is currently undergoing investigations for bribing local officials in West Covina.
A lawsuit currently wending its way through the courts states that Athens engaged in a series of bribes to West Covina Councilman Fred Sykes and others by giving money, campaign contributions and high dollar gifts to council members who voted to give the waste company a sweetheart contract. The deal the company was lobbying for got passed despite that city officials had reviewed the Athens contract and determined that it wasn’t a good deal for the city.
Taking a look at the statistics in the area shows a shocking disparity. CalRecyle, for instance, reports that San Bernardino landfill deposits actually increased since 2014, when Athens took over from Burrtec, the company that previously operated the landfills. A look at those stats in the area show something to be concerned about.
Here are the intake rates for some of the Athens-operated landfills according to CalRecycle.
- Azusa – 17.02% increase in disposal since 2012
- Glendora – 15.27% increase
- Los Angeles Area Integrated – 17.82% increase
- Monterey Park – 4.57% increase
- West Covina – 12.55% increase
- West Hollywood – 24.18% increase
Now let’s compare those to landfills run by Waste Management which operates in Los Angeles County:
- Baldwin Park – 7.69% decrease in disposal since 2012
- La Verne – 8.14% decrease
- San Dimas – 7.63% decrease
Notice how the intake levels fell for the Waste Management facilities? Now add that to a few of the San Bernadino area Valley Vista landfills. One of that company’s facilities had a slight rise in intake while a second one also had a drop like the Waste Management dumps did. Valley Vista’s Walnut site saw a small .71% increase while the El Monte facility had a decrease of 13.35%.
Yet all the facilities operated by Athens Services and its various co-entities all had large increases. Why is that?
It leads local citizens to wonder if Athens is simply dumping recyclables instead of going to the expense of doing the recycling? And with the perceived corruption that Athens is already mired in, the questions raised seem to be good questions.
With many California counties wanting to do nothing but recycle, which is an over zealous approach to waste, we see one large company which appears to be turning away the recyclables to increase profits. Something definitely stinks in the golden state.
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“The only end of writing is to enable the reader better to enjoy life, or better to endure it.”
–Samuel Johnson
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Warner Todd Huston is a Chicago based freelance writer. He has been writing news, opinion editorials and social criticism since early 2001 and before that wrote articles on U.S. history for several American history magazines. Huston is a featured writer for Andrew Breitbart’s Breitbart News, and he appears on such sites as RightWingNews.com, CanadaFreePress.com, Wizbang.com, and many, many others. Huston has also appeared on Fox News, Fox Business Network, CNN, and many local TV shows as well as numerous talk radio shows throughout the country.
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