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Supervisors hear concerns over recent recycling-center closures, sponsor resolution asking Safeway to halt evictions
Summary
Supervisors heard testimony about multiple recycling-center closures at supermarket parking lots and a supervisor said she would introduce a resolution urging Safeway to cease evicting redemption centers and asking the Department of the Environment to pursue a more evenly distributed network of redemption centers.
Supervisor London Breed and Supervisor Mark Farrell and others heard public testimony and a committee hearing prompted by Supervisor Mar’s June 19 meeting on the closure of recycling centers at supermarket parking lots. Supervisor Mar described the abrupt closure of several redemption centers — including sites at Safeway Church & Market and the La Playa Safeway in the Outer Richmond — and said closures are concentrated in the northern part of the city.
“At that hearing on June 19, we heard from a number of longtime recyclers and environmental advocates,” Supervisor Mar said, according to meeting remarks. She told colleagues the closures risked jeopardizing the city’s zero-waste goals and deprived many of a critical income stream.
Mar said she would draft a resolution that would call for Safeway to "immediately cease the eviction of redemption centers," including the site at 2020 Market Street then scheduled to close June 30, and would ask the Department of the Environment to explore options for a more evenly distributed network of redemption centers across the city. The proposed resolution would also urge supermarkets to comply with their statutory obligations to allow redemption centers on their parking lots where required.
Community representatives spoke in support of the action. Larissa Dugan Cuadra of the Central American Resource Center told the board the closures compound broader humanitarian and economic stresses affecting immigrant communities. Anna Montano of the AIDS Legal Referral Panel said she recently returned from a fact-finding trip to El Salvador and read a community statement about protections for LGBT Salvadorans (see separate article on the El Salvador resolution introduction).
Supervisor Mar asked the Department of the Environment and other city agencies to explore solutions and to work with the board on a resolution addressing the closures and their impacts on low-income residents who rely on redemption centers for income.
The transcript records the introduction and intent to pursue a resolution; the board did not record a final vote on this specific Safeway-related resolution during the June meeting.
