Programs Chair Bob Hoffman mixed things up a little when he combined a Craft Talk with an Industry Talk, providing Club Members a chance to get to know Gina Post-Franco a little better and learn about the changes taking place in the recycling world from Teri Muse.

Teri Muse from Waste Management, gave the Industry Talk on the new restrictions that China is placing on all imported recyclables.  Beginning  this year, China set a new requirement which allows only 0.5% “contamination” or trash in the recyclables.  In United States, 25% of what is placed in a recycle container is trash, making it almost impossible for recycling processers to meet the new China standards.  In addition, in 2018 China stopped accepting many materials that the US exports to them such as certain plastics and mixed paper. Finally, China started a new program called “Operation Blue Sky” which is a screening program at China’s ports that inspects the cargo ships for the contamination and if it is deemed above 0.5% the ship is returned to the United States.

All of these changes have made it increasingly important that residents and businesses place only CLEAN AND DRY recyclables such as paper, cardboard, plastic bottle and jugs, metal cans and glass in their recycling containers.  Food and liquids can cause an entire truckload of recycling to become contaminated.  Also, no film plastic such as baggies, grocery bags and shrink wrap are acceptable.  One final tip is to never place a plastic bag full of recyclables in your recycling container. Recyclables must be loose in the container. Plastic bags full of recyclables are not torn open to process as recycling. Rather, they are moved over to the trash side of the facility in case it is full of trash and contamination.  To learn more about recycling visit RecycleOftenRecycleRight.com or RORR.com, Waste Management’s recycling education website.

Gina Post-Franco from Post Alarms provided the Craft Talk for the day, giving us an inside look on the history of Post Alarms and her amazing life.  Gina spent most of her childhood in Big Bear fishing, skiing hiking and camping.  Her family moved there so Gina could pursue club soccer.  Her Dad made the trek “down the hill” to the San Gabriel Valley each day to run Post Alarms.

Gina and her husband Anthony, have two boys Dylan-10 years old and Reese-8 years old who have many talents including art. Both boys will have entries in this year’s LA County Fair art contests.  Gina home schools her sons from 8-12:30 each day and then goes to the office from 1pm-??? Gina is a graduate of USC Marshall School of Business and worked in IT consulting for 5 years before joining the company business in 2002.

Post Patrol and Detective Agency was started in 1954 by her grandfather Sam Post.  In the 1960’s they added the commercial alarm business and in the 1970’s the residential business grew which was when they added an alarm monitoring facility and also began monitoring for the Temple City police Dept.

The company is now in the capable hands of third-generation Post family members Gina and Rob. They are the 49^th largest private security company in the US with 145 employees.  In her spare time, Gina loves sailing, golfing, skiing attending USC football games and pursuing her passion which is her horses. Oh, and one more thing….Gina is also a magician!