Their Motto: Use It Again, Keep It Outta That Bin

One person’s trash is another’s treasure. At least that’s the thinking behind CalMAX, the California Materials Exchange.

“Reduce, repair, recycle” is the mantra and governing principle of this arm of the California Waste Management Board--one that encourages waste reduction through partnerships among businesses, institutions and schools. These affiliations also help conserve energy, resources and landfill space.

Since its inception seven years ago, CalMAX, a free service, has diverted more than 650,000 tons of waste and saved taxpayers more than $5.5 million.

Here’s how it works: Participants use CalMAX’s catalog to review its lists of Available and Wanted materials, which include containers, durable goods, electronics, glass, metal, organics, paint, pallets, paper, plastic, rubber, textiles and wood. Beside each available item is its description and the location where it can be found within the state’s 15 regions. The interested applicant then responds to the ad and negotiates terms. (CalMAX suggests that buyers beware and know any legal limitations that may exist on the exchange of goods. Tires, for example, are subject to some restrictions.)

Myan Spacerelli is the owner of Looney Bins in Sun Valley, a company that salvages wood, metal, cardboard and plastics from studio sets. His efforts earned him CalMAX’s 1998 Connection of the Year award for targeting priority materials, especially organic waste and construction and demolition debris.

CalMAX has also honored Mike Daley, who annually converts 20,000 tons of stockpiled sugar byproducts from C & H Sugar’s filtration process to an agricultural soil product favored by farmers. David Tress of Kemstar Corp. buys surplus chemicals, solvents, dyes and resins from domestic companies. He then sells them at a discount in markets that regenerate rather than destroy the compounds.

In downtown Los Angeles, David Streng’s warehouse stocks paint mistints, often in 5-gallon containers, offering them for free. Some disabled vets and developmentally disabled people credit businessman Rick Holliday with helping them craft and market birdhouses, planters and treehouses made from scrap materials.

Other entrepreneurs build modular office furniture from organic and recycled matter. Companies refurbish old computers and donate them to schools. Technicians recover and reuse precious metals such as silver, gold and platinum from circuit boards. Boys & Girls Clubs use architects’ old blueprints as drawing paper.

And in the spring, the decoration committee for an elementary school’s annual fair had a surprise. The creative and imaginative parents browsed through CalMAX’s catalog and solicited donations of Mylar strips, blank CDs, Styrofoam and drums. They distributed these wares to each grade level, and students artistically produced functional art, which provided the decor and ambience for their Out of This World-themed event.

Perhaps current recycling programs and partnerships are a rebirth and an adaptation of long-gone traditions . . . the dairy farmer delivering milk in resanitized bottles, the grocer refilling cloth bags with fresh foods, the kid going door to door collecting newspapers for the school’s annual paper drive.

For more information on CalMAX, call (916) 255-2369 or log on to https://www.ciwmb.ca.gov/calmax.