Success Stories - Community

From small towns to large cities, your neighbors in the San Joaquin Valley are coming up with great ways to reduce air pollution.

Fresno Fire Department

The San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District has graciously donated 100 reusable grocery bags to the Fresno Fire Department, which will be distributed to each fire station in the coming weeks. The reusable bags will help us become more environmentally friendly, create a financial savings for the crews and show the measure of the department's commitment to being recognized as a standard of excellence in the fire service.

We can all do a little in order to save a little or we can all do a little to save a lot.

• FoodMax provides a .05 cent credit for each reusable grocery bag you bring to the store. That could mean a savings of over $600.00 a year collectively for the members of FFD.
• It costs the state $25 million annually to landfill discarded plastic grocery bags.
• Public agencies in California spend more than $300 million annually in litter cleanup.
• Southern California cities have spent more than $1.7 billion to restore clean water in trashed waterways such as rivers and lakes.
• Cities and recyclers spend enormous amounts of time and money removing plastic bags from other recyclable materials at the facility; plastic bags jam machinery and add to the manual labor costs of recycling.

Thanks for your help on this worthwhile, environmentally friendly, green project.

Jay S. Tracy
Firefighter Specialist E-7B
City of Fresno Fire Department