TBO.com - TBO is Tampa Bay Online

Suncoast Pasco News

Recycling Advocate Never Gets Nasty

Cheryl Bentley/SUNCOAST NEWS

Monica Dear, co-founder of RESORCE recycling club, collects rain in this barrel. The barrel has a screen over the top to prevent insects from getting into the water. The barrels are available through the Pasco County Extension Service.

ADVERTISEMENT

By Cheryl  Bentley | The Suncoast News

Published: October 31, 2007

Monica Dear remembers collecting bottles with her brother while growing up in Hudson as part of a Sunday ritual. They would turn their finds in for cash.

Dear laments that children no longer have the same opportunity.

"The bottle deposit law got repealed. I'd like to know why."

And she probably will.

She has already enlisted state Rep. John Legg's help in learning the answer.

When it comes to recycling, she is persistent, Dear admits "to the point where I'm a thorn. But I'm a nice thorn. I never get nasty."

Co-founded club

Dear has used that persistence to co-found a recycling club, Recycling and Educate to Save Our Resources for a Clean Environment, or RESORCE recycling club for short. The club has become a player in Pasco County's recycling world.

When it started in 2002, RESORCE had 15 members. Today, its membership is more than 100.

In 2003, RESORCE members circulated surveys measuring opinions on recycling, getting more than 1,200 responses. More than 90 percent of those surveyed wanted more drop-off locations, and the majority was not satisfied with the present system of having plastic, cans and glass recyclables picked up biweekly in blue bags residents buy at stores, according to Dear.

The county does not have pickups for newspapers.

According to Pasco County Recycling Coordinator Rachel Surrency, the survey's positive response about recycling was helpful in getting a recycling pilot program at Meadow Pointe, a Wesley Chapel subdivision, last year.

Under the program, some Meadow Pointe residents recycled in blue bags, and some in bins. Almost twice as many with bins recycled than those with bags.

Encouraging results

The results encouraged recycling proponents such as Dear who argue mandatory recycling would free up space at the county's waste processing center in Shady Hills.

Although she thinks more people would recycle with bins, Dear would also support mandatory recycling with plastic bags.

Opponents cite the expense of buying bins, which they say could cost the county $1 million.

Surrency also mentions Dear's commitment to promoting the blue bags at Home Depot in Port Richey, where Dear works. She always makes sure the bags are in stock and includes the bags in appropriate merchandising displays there.

She calls Dear's commitment to recycling "passionate."

That is also one of the words County Commissioner Ann Hildebrand uses in describing Dear. "She's got a wealth of information," the commissioner adds.

Hildebrand and Dear both serve on the board of Keep Pasco Beautiful, a coalition of representatives from the public and private sectors that promotes keeping the county environmentally friendly.

Recycles everything

"She recycles everything from coffee grounds to egg shells," Hildebrand observes in a tone of amazement and admiration.

Dear says the recycling bug bit early. She remembers scooping up water running from a gutter and returning it to the canal at low tide near her Hudson home on Clark Street as a child.

"I thought the canal needed water," she recalls.

Her family moved to Florida when her father, John, now 90, retired as an Air Force pilot in 1968, when Dear was 7.

Dear is a product of Pasco County Schools: Hudson Elementary School, where her mother Gisela worked as a teacher's aide for 17 years; the then-Bayonet Point Junior High School, and Hudson High School.

She majored in biology at the University of South Florida in Tampa, intending to become a veterinarian.

But, shortly after she graduated, Gisela developed cancer and passed away.

Worked for county

Mourning her mother's death, Dear no longer had the stomach for further education. She worked at Pasco County Mosquito Control and later as assistant manager at Tampa Executive Airport in Odessa.

In both places, she started a recycling program for cans.

But, it was buying a home in New Port Richey in 1994 that kicked her recycling passion into full gear.

The former owner had left all his trash in the home. Dear still sighs when remembering what she faced. "Ten coffee cans of oil, piles of cardboard and newspapers out the ying-yang."

The woman who says she loves to problem solve wanted to find something useful to do with the trash.

She ended up in the office of the Pasco County Recycling Coordinator, where she discovered the office didn't have much of a budget to inform residents about ways to recycle.

Very responsive

She consulted County Commissioner Ann Hildebrand, who, she remembers, was "very responsive" when Dear floated an idea of getting more people involved in recycling.

Dear's self-deprecating sense of humor takes over when she remembers the early days of her recycling zeal.

"I became a little bit of a pest."

Her enthusiasm jumped up a notch when she started working for Home Depot in Port Richey in 1997. She is now a telephone operator there, a job she enjoys because "I love helping people."

At Home Depot, she started a recycling program for aluminum cans.

In the early days, employees there took some educating about recycling.

Still, she persisted, standing up at every staff meeting reminding employees of both the rules and the importance of recycling.

"Little by little, we chipped away at it," she says. "Here it is 10 years later, and things are going great."

Chipped away

She was able to hook up with Sandra Myers, another Home Depot employee. The two started RESORCE in 2002.

The club has become a fixture at the events of Greater New Port Richey Main Street events, where members operate recycling services.

Dear credits Main Street Executive Director Judy DeBella Thomas with being supportive of recycling at her events.

These days, Dear and husband Guiseppe "Joe" LoSapio, a medical equipment salesperson, are in the process of adopting a little boy.

Dear has no doubt she has ample energy for the new responsibility. "I'm like a hummingbird. I never sit still."

The County Commission will hold a public workshop on recycling at West Pasco Government Center board room on Tuesday, Nov. 13 at 1:30 p.m. Dear will be there.

For more information on RESORCE, call Dear at 727-857-0039 or visit the RESORCE Web site.

Share this:

Loading Comments...

Email Print

ADVERTISEMENT