City of San Juan Capistrano Bag 2 Bag Curbside Plastic Bag Recycling Program December 2006 Update By Ziad Mazboudi, PE, CPSWQ Senior Civil Engineer/Environmental Division Manager Tel:

City of San Juan Capistrano Residential Curbside Plastic Bag Recycling Program Pilot launched in March 2005 A Public-Private partnership success story Simple concept: Place your plastic bags in blue plastic bags provided to all residential properties, then place the blue bag in your recycling container. CR&R removes the blue bags at the sort line in their MRF facility in Stanton, bales them and truck them to Hilex Poly. Hilex Poly cleans the bags and capture the plastic to make new plastic bag. Simple concept. Simple enough for 2 other neighboring cities to roll the exact program within 3 months. San Clemente and Dana Point became the other South Orange County to get on board.

Where are we today ? Pilot modified to a simpler process: –Residents were informed to place all their plastic bags in any other plastic bag, and then place in their recycling container. –This eliminated the need to distribute plastic bags and containers Municipal tool kit developed by Progressive Bag Alliance to assist any city getting on board. Seven cities in South Orange County, 317,000 residents are currently participating in program. Almost 3 Million bags have been captured and recycled !!!

San Juan Capistrano and Plastic Film What’s in our future ? Continue educating the residents on proper recycling of plastic bags at home. With more than 3,000 horses in town, Agricultural plastic bags, such as plastic wrapped bedding bags used in stables are the next “potential success story” in our horizon.