NEWS
Wednesday, november 20, 2019
HermIsTonHeraLd.Com • A7
Hermiston employer recognized by Department of Defense
By JADE MCDOWELL
neWs edITor
In the year since Sidney
Nevil started working for
Vern’s Food Service Dis-
tribution in Hermiston, he
has frequently needed time
off of work to attend to his
duties in the National Guard.
His
boss,
Fred
Ledezma, has always been
understanding.
“Sometimes it’s been last
minute, and without ques-
tion, he says, ‘I’ll see you
when you get back,’” Nevil
said.
It’s something Nevil has
been grateful for. Flexi-
ble and supportive employ-
ers like Ledezma, he said,
greatly relieve stress for
Guard members as they
try to juggle their employ-
ment and their duty to their
country.
On Wednesday, Ledezma
was recognized with the
Seven Seals award from
Staff photo by Ben Lonergan
Jerry Carlson, left, Fred Ledezma, and Sidney Nevil pose for a picture outside of Vern’s Food
Service Distribution in Hermiston on Wednesday afternoon. Ledezma was recognized with an
award from the Department of Defense for his support of employees in the National Guard
following a nomination for the award by Nevil.
the Department of Defense,
after Nevil nominated him
for consideration.
The award is charac-
terized as the “broadest
and most inclusive award”
given by the department’s
Employer Support of the
Guard and Reserve pro-
gram. The ESGR was estab-
lished in 1972 to foster more
support of reserves by their
civilian employers, and to
help service members and
their employers navigate
difficulties caused by their
military commitments.
Jerry Carlson, an ESGR
military outreach coordi-
nator in Hermiston, said
National Guard members
have more trainings, deploy-
ments and other demands on
their time than they used to
— making it more important
than ever that employers be
willing to hire and support
soldiers.
“Some employers are not
very supportive,” he said
during an informal presen-
tation ceremony Wednesday
afternoon.
He said that Vern’s Food
Service Distribution and
Ledezma would be held up
as a “prime example” of
support.
Ledezma has worked for
the company for 27 years,
and serves as its warehouse
manager and driver man-
ager. The company dis-
tributes wholesale food,
beverages and supplies
throughout Oregon and
Washington, according to its
website.
Ledezma said he believes
it is important to hire peo-
ple currently serving in the
National Guard and veter-
ans, to gain from their expe-
rience and give them new
skills and experience in
return. It’s something he has
tried to do throughout his
career there.
“I believe they have a lot
to contribute,” he said.
He said he was honored
to receive the award rec-
ognizing his support of the
ESGR’s mission.
“When
they
were
explaining to me, I thought
it was beautiful,” he said.
“It’s nice to be recognized
in the community.”
Drop in market means recyclables land in landfill
By JADE MCDOWELL
neWs edITor
Your most recently dis-
carded shampoo bottle may
technically be able to be
recycled, but it’s not going
to be.
Pop bottles and other
drink containers you can
redeem for a 10-cent
deposit in Oregon are still
being recycled by the Ore-
gon Beverage Recycling
Cooperative at a facility
in St. Helens that handles
high-quality #1 plastics.
And some transfer stations,
such as Sanitary Disposal
in Hermiston, are currently
taking milk jugs.
“All other plastics are
just landfilled,” Sanitary
Disposal president Mike
Jewett said. “DEQ said get
rid of them.”
It wasn’t always this
way. For decades, Amer-
icans tossed everything
from laundry detergent bot-
tles to butter tubs into curb-
side bins, assuring them-
selves that the items would
be reshaped into a new con-
tainer and land back on the
shelves at Walmart shortly.
Those low-quality plas-
tics are expensive and dif-
ficult to recycle, however,
and break down over mul-
tiple rounds of recycling.
Companies in the United
States couldn’t make recy-
cling such products pencil
out financially, and so they
shipped most of that plastic
to China.
That’s not all they were
shipping to China. Careless
Americans were increas-
ingly throwing jars half-full
of peanut butter, syringes
and Styrofoam contain-
ers into the mix, increas-
ing labor costs and decreas-
ing profits as workers had to
separate out the waste that
made up as much as 20% of
the load the company had
paid for.
And so, in July 2017,
China announced it would
no longer be allowing
imports of most plastic
waste, and transfer stations
suddenly found themselves
with nowhere to sell their
plastic for recycling.
Some, like Milton-Free-
water’s recycling contrac-
tor Horizon Project, quickly
announced they would stop
taking plastic. Others, like
transfer stations in The
Dalles and Hood River, kept
collecting curbside recy-
Staff photo by Ben Lonergan
Milk jugs pile up in crates below a sign advising visitors to
Sanitary Disposal in Hermiston on Friday afternoon that other
forms of plastic are no longer accepted as recycling.
Staff photo by Ben Lonergan
A wall of stacked bales of cardboard support a pile of newsprint at Sanitary Disposal in
Hermiston on Friday afternoon. The newsprint is left in a pile while the company works to
mend their baler so that they can process and bale the paper to get sold for reclamation.
cling to keep people in the
habit but then took out the
plastic and sent it to landfills
or incinerators.
At Sanitary Disposal,
Jewett told the East Ore-
gonian in November 2017
that they were still stockpil-
ing plastic on site, hoping
to ride out the sudden glut
in the very small domestic
market.
Two years later, a new
home for most of that plas-
tic has never materialized,
domestically or in other
countries.
Now, Jewett said, a sim-
ilar problem is forming
with cardboard. He said
China was taking 20 mil-
lion tons of cardboard a few
years ago, then five million,
and now two. The county
expects to not accept any by
2021.
“That market has really
gone sour,” Jewett said.
Sanitary Disposal is
stockpiling cardboard like it
once stockpiled plastic, hop-
ing the market will rebound
in the spring after going “as
low as it’s ever been.”
Jewett said the trans-
fer station is still recy-
cling other materials, such
as wood, metals and glass.
Right now it’s costing them
more to ship the glass to
Portland than they’re get-
ting paid for it, he said, but
“we don’t want to break any
habits.”
“Our recycling income is
a lot lower than it has been
in the past,” he said.
A report on recycling
released this week by the
environmental
advocacy
organization Environment
Oregon stated that Orego-
nians are producing more
waste than ever while recy-
cling less of it.
“The reality is plastics
are so hard to recycle and
so low value that we could
only consistently afford to
collect and recycle it when
China was willing to buy it,”
Celeste Meiffren-Swango,
state director for Environ-
ment Oregon Research &
Policy Center, said in a
statement. “Now we are left
to deal with it ourselves, and
plastic is choking our recy-
cling system.”
The report points out the
problems that come with
reduced recycling. Burn-
ing more plastic in incin-
erators damages air quality
and presents health hazards.
More plastic ends up in the
ocean. Landfills can leak
toxins into the soil or water
supply, and generate green-
house gases. And finally,
when materials are dis-
carded instead of recycled,
it creates a need to obtain
new “virgin” materials,
accelerating our consump-
tion of the Earth’s resources.
In order to address the
problem,
Environment
Oregon suggests a three-
pronged approach: Reduce,
Reuse and Recycle.
Under reduce, they sup-
port laws banning or reduc-
ing single-use products,
such as plastic bags, straws
and styrofoam take-out con-
tainers. They also support
structuring garbage rates
based on how much waste a
person throws out, encour-
aging conservation.
Under
reuse,
they
encourage consumers and
businesses to trade sin-
gle-use plastics for prod-
ucts, such as fabric grocery
bags or refillable water bot-
tles. They also advocate
for “right to repair” laws
that allow people and inde-
pendent shops to fix their
own appliances and other
products.
Under recycle, they sug-
gest an expansion of curb-
side recycling and compost-
ing programs, as well as
laws requiring new products
to contain a certain percent-
age of recycled material.
They want to legally hold
manufacturers accountable
for “the waste their product
will become.”
“It’s entirely within our
power to fix the system, but
what is missing is the nec-
essary sense of urgency,”
U.S. PIRG Education Fund
Zero Waste Director Alex
Truelove, who co-authored
the report, said in a news
release. “Recycling, com-
posting and waste reduc-
tion efforts will need to
play an important role in
the fight against microplas-
tic pollution, climate change
and other environmental
challenges.”
From a transfer station’s
standpoint, Jewett said indi-
vidual customers can do
their part by being careful to
follow rules posted at sites
where they get rid of their
recycling. The glass drop-
offs are only for glass bot-
tles and food containers, for
example. If someone throws
a window into the dump-
ster and it breaks, they have
now rendered the entire load
of glass unfit for recycling,
out of concerns about lead
contamination.
Contamination by care-
less recyclers, of course, is
what lead to China throwing
the recycling market into
chaos in the first place.
“Remember: Contami-
nation turns recycling into
trash,” Jewett said.
Introducing
Kan Yang
DO, Family Medicine
Specializing in Mohs and Skin Cancer Surgery
OPEN HOUSE
Friday, Dec. 6th • 11am-1pm
FREE SKIN CANCER
SCREENING
All attendees will be entered into a drawing to
win a variety of skin care essentials!
1050 W. Elm Ave., Suite #220 • Hermiston, OR
541-289-4601
Kan Yang earned his degree of Doctor of
Osteopathic Medicine from Michigan State
University College of Osteopathic Medicine,
DMC Campus, in Detroit, Michigan. He
completed his residency with The Wright
Center for GME, Family Medicine Regional
Network, in Scranton, Pennsylvania. In his
spare time, Kan enjoys reading science fiction,
spending time with family, jogging, and playing
squash, basketball, ping pong, and tennis.
Now accepting new patients.
589 Northwest 11th St.
Hermiston, OR 97838
(541) 567-1717
yvfwc.com
yvfwc.com