Bernson Recycles Proposal to Separate L.A.’s Trash

With Los Angeles running out of places to dump its garbage, City Councilman Hal Bernson proposed Friday that the city again require residents to separate recyclable items from the rest of their trash.

The proposal, on which the council will vote Tuesday, comes a quarter of a century after mandatory trash separation ended because of widespread public opposition.

Los Angeles residents were required to separate cans and other metals from the rest of their trash until Sam Yorty was elected mayor in 1961, pledging to repeal the law, which he did. Yorty’s predecessor, Mayor Norris Poulson, instituted the program so the city could make money from the sale of scrap metal, retired City Administrative Officer C. Erwin Piper recalled Friday. But Yorty argued that the profits were not worth the trouble to residents.

Several council members Friday said times have changed.

“The time has come for us to do everything we possibly can immediately to reduce the amount of rubbish that we have to put in landfills,” said Bernson, who is fighting expansion of the privately owned Sunshine Canyon Landfill above Granada Hills, in his district.

“It’s no longer acceptable to put garbage into every hillside we have in Los Angeles.”

Forecasts show that the only city-owned dump, the Lopez Canyon Landfill above Lake View Terrace, could be full as early as 1993. Efforts to expand existing landfills or open new ones have run into strong opposition from neighbors.

San Fernando Valley council members have been the leading advocates of finding alternate ways of disposing of trash because most of the city’s trash is going to Valley-area dumps. Councilman Joel Wachs said he will support mandatory recycling. “I think it’s so imperative to have people involved in their own solution to their own problems,” he said in an interview. “People create their own waste. . . . Each person has to therefore be involved in solving the problem.”

Councilwoman Joy Picus said she believes people will now accept mandatory trash separation. “I believe people are ready to do it,” she said. “I think they see it as preferable to landfills and transfer stations and incinerators in their backyards. It’s the least of the evils.”

About 70% of the 15,000 homes on the Westside now participate in a voluntary recycling program established in March, 1985. The program has reduced the trash from that area going to dumps by about 7%, said Robert Alpern, principal sanitary engineer in the city’s Sanitation Bureau.

The city is planning to expand the voluntary recycling program next month to 1,500 homes in the San Fernando Valley.

Alpern said that, even if the city reinstitutes mandatory trash separation, it may have difficulty finding a market for recyclables. He pointed out that the city has not yet found a market for plastics it receives at recycling centers. They end up at a dump, he said.

Wachs said the idea is still worth a try.

Bernson introduced his proposal as the council deadlocked Friday on what position to take on a bill before the state Legislature to prohibit new dumping in most of the mountains around the Valley. The issue will come back before the council Wednesday.

Bernson supports the bill, but other council members question where the trash will go if it passes.

“We know we can’t put it on a barge and ship it out to sea,” said Picus, referring to a New York town’s ill-fated efforts to dispose of garbage. “Sometimes I think we ought to ship it up to Sacramento.”

Yorty was out of town and unavailable for comment.