San Francisco’s Top Environmental Groups Endorse HANC Recycling
Sierra Club, San Francisco Tomorrow Tell Green Mayor : Keep It
10 Green Jobs and 5,000 Native Plants May Be Saved

Two of San Francisco’s leading environmental organizations, the Sierra Club and San
Francisco Tomorrow, have sent letters of support for the Haight Ashbury Neighborhood
Council (HANC) Recycling Center and Native Plant Nursery. The fate of the HANC
center has come into doubt in recent weeks with the Mayor’s office admitting that “they
are actively exploring other alternatives for the site”.

Dated last Friday, the Sierra Club letter recognizes the importance of HANC declaring its
Recycling Center and Nursery “… valuable resources in making San Francisco an
environmentally sustainable city”.

Furthermore, the letter points out that the majority of those who use the site are average
San Franciscan’s and not just the homeless. The letter states that the customers “…are
property owners, renters and business owners who want a hands on relationship in
recycling their solid waste”. This point is exemplified by the hundreds of San Franciscans
who when news of the Mayor’s intentions became known wrote him to reconsider the
closure of this popular neighborhood resource.

The Mayor’s Office has contended that the principal users of the center are the homeless
who use it as a kind of ATM. “They are actually considering the elimination of all
recycling centers near Golden Gate Park to deprive the few campers that do recycle a
means of sustenance,” says Ed Dunn, HANC Executive Director, “ it’s really a scorched
earth policy”.

Moving beyond just recycling in recent years, HANC has diversified into the burgeoning
urban agriculture movement. Under the direction of Greg Gaar, HANC has created the
City’s premier native plant nursery. And since 2003 HANC has been the fiscal agent for
the Garden For the Environment.

Founded in 1974, the HANC Recycling Center and Native Plant Nursery has created 10
green jobs that pay a living wage including health care. The Center has been on Park
property for 33 years.

HANC has been a State Certified Redemption Center since 1987. San Franciscans are
notoriously underserved by recycling centers having one for every 44,000 residents while
the rest of the State has one for every 18,000 residents.