Store owner pushes green approach in business, life

By Donna Beth Weilenman
Staff Reporter

When Gene Pedrotti was a boy living in nearby Crockett, he learned about recycling from his family and through his Boy Scout troop that conducted monthly newspaper collecting drives.

As an adult and a business owner, Pedrotti hasn’t abandoned the “save, salvage, repair and reuse” ethic he learned as a child. In fact, it was that ethic that motivated him — “on a whim,” he said — to do something in December 2008 after reading that the state would require people to recycle dry-cell batteries and fluorescent lights.

“I read about the California law, and I said it was absurd, because there’s no enforcement,” said Pedrotti, owner of the Ace Hardware in Southampton Shopping Center.

Unlike for glass and plastic bottle recycling programs, which are funded by fees, the recycling requirement for batteries and fluorescent lights had no funding established when California imposed the new regulation.

“I feel strongly that recycling must — must, must — be convenient,” Pedrotti said. Otherwise, it’s too easy for someone to toss a recyclable object into the trash, he added.

Because his store is where many Benicians buy batteries and fluorescent lights, he decided it also should be a spot where residents could recycle those items, too. The city of Benicia and Allied Waste endorsed his idea.

“We want the residents to know about this,” Tanya Gilmore, the city’s recycling coordinator, said. “There are bins at several sites in the city. The used batteries and fluorescent lights are picked up by Allied Waste, who manages and pays for it. Kudos go to the people who are using it!”

Allied Waste, Benicia’s franchise trash hauler that also handles its residential recycling, has set bins at the Benicia Public Library, City Hall and Fire Department stations so residents can drop off batteries and lights, said Jennifer Brennan, Allied recycling coordinator. This recycling program is for Benicia residents, she said, and Allied handles the collection and recycling at its own expense.

Companies that want to start recycling programs may contact her company about a small waste generator account, she said.

The hardware store is the only retail site from which Allied picks up the recyclables, Brennan said. And customers have been filling up the half-dozen square buckets Pedrotti has placed throughout his store.

“We’ve collected tens of thousands of batteries,” Pedrotti said. “We got 3,600 pounds — that’s a lot of batteries. Alkaline, nicad, lithium, double-As, triple-As — any dry-cell battery.” Wet-cell batteries, such as automobile batteries, can’t go in those bins, he said. They must be recycled at the transfer station.

Fluorescent lamps, both the long tubes and the spiral-shaped ones that can replace conventional incandescent bulbs, also go into the bins. Pedrotti said 2,200 such lamps were turned in last year. To remind purchasers to recycle used lights, the store’s employees mark their packages with stickers that promote recycling.

But Pedrotti didn’t stop there. He urged the managers of the Southampton Shopping Center to encourage recycling as well, and they responded by putting recycling bins in the back of the complex.

His own store strives to use greener products, such as recycled paper, Pedrotti said — and he said he wants to do more. He intends to install solar panels, and is studying recent changes in the industry.

“The latest technology,” he said, “will carry you for the next 20 years.”

Reducing his company’s carbon footprint weighs on the merchant. “I’m in a tough position,” Pedrotti said. “I’m rewarded by consumerism, but it’s a double-edged sword. There’s so much more we can do.”

He said all merchants need to do more to promote rechargeable batteries. “They’re twice the price of alkaline batteries,” he said, “but you can recharge them over and over again. I can’t tell you how many batteries I’ve saved. You buy the batteries and a little charger, and they pay for themselves in a short time. It’s a prudent investment.”

He remembered when his grandfather, uncle and father ran as a two-man operation the company he owns today. Then he recalled his childhood in the blue-collar community where recycling was a way of life.

“When people don’t have a lot of money, you save what you can. If your faucet needed repair, you replaced the washer, not the whole faucet. You salvage what you can.”

Pedrotti followed that ethic himself when his garage door opener quit working, and he insisted that it be repaired. “I would rather pay to swap out a component than buy a new one,” he said.

“Twenty-five years ago, you would buy a heavy-duty Toastmaster toaster. It was worth doing a repair, and when a toaster goes out, it’s one little wire. Now toasters are $10, and it costs more to repair than to buy a new one.

But if you consider the footprint of the new toaster, consumerism is too cheap.”

Battery Dropoff Points
Besides Ace Hardware, batteries can be dropped off at the Benicia Fire Department, public library and city hall. Residents also can drop off batteries, oil and paint at the Benicia Corporation Yard, 2400 East Second St., from 9 a.m. to noon Saturdays.