Council Orders Plan to Separate Trash at Homes

Saying that Los Angeles is running out of places to dump its garbage, the City Council on Tuesday ordered the drafting of a plan that could require homeowners to separate recyclable items from the rest of their trash.

The proposal could require that trash be placed in as many as four separate receptacles. By a unanimous vote, the council directed the Bureau of Sanitation to devise a plan that would apply to all single-family homeowners, most of whom have trash picked up by city trucks.

The motion also orders the bureau to investigate whether it can force private refuse haulers, who serve most apartment and condominium complexes and almost all businesses and industries in the city, to also separate recyclable materials from other trash.

Council members acknowledged that there could be an outcry against mandatory trash separation. But several said that recycling is needed because the city is running out of dump sites.

Before a new trash separation requirement can become law, the council must hold a public hearing, approve or amend the plan drawn up by the Bureau of Sanitation and then take two separate votes on the law. The mayor’s approval would also be required.

Councilwoman Joy Picus said she has long supported recycling, even though the city’s political history suggests that it “can be hazardous to an elected official’s health.”

Los Angeles residents were required to separate cans and other metals from the rest of their trash until Sam Yorty, pledging to drop the requirement, was elected mayor in 1961.

In his campaign against two-term incumbent Norris Poulson, Yorty decried mandatory trash separation as “coercion against the housewives of this city.”

After his election, Yorty successfully pushed for repeal of the law under which, if trash was not separated, city crews would not pick it up. Yorty was out of town Tuesday and unavailable to comment on the present trash proposal.

Mayor Tom Bradley’s press secretary, Ali Webb, said the mayor “has supported recycling for 14 years.” But she said Bradley would probably wait for a specific draft plan before commenting.

“Times have changed since 1961,” said Councilman Ernani Bernardi. “We no longer have the luxury of opening new dump sites whenever we need another landfill.”

Forecasts show that the only city-owned dump, the Lopez Canyon Landfill in northeast San Fernando Valley, could be full as early as 1993.

In recent years, council members have considered several proposed landfill sites. But all proposed sites have run into strong neighborhood opposition.

Picus said that while there could be opposition to mandatory trash separation, “I doubt if it will be of the same magnitude as the opposition we have encountered from people who don’t want a dump near them”

Councilman Joel Wachs endorsed mandatory recycling because it “involves people in solving their own problem. And I think that’s a good way to operate.”

About two-thirds of the 15,000 homes in a Westside test area now voluntarily separate their trash into four categories, said Reva Fabrikant, a Bureau of Sanitation engineering associate.

Participants are supplied three plastic containers--for metals, plastics and newspapers--which are picked up by special trucks every other week.

Homeowners continue to supply their own containers for the remainder of their trash, which is picked up weekly, Fabrikant said.

She said the program has reduced the trash going to local dumps from the test area by about 9%.

Another recycling test is scheduled to begin June 5 at 1,500 homes in four separate neighborhoods in the San Fernando Valley.

In that program, homeowners will be asked to place metals, glass and paper in city-supplied containers and the rest of their refuse in their own containers, said Anna Sklar, Department of Public Works spokeswoman.

“Most of the Westside participants are joining in because they seem to realize we are in a trash crisis,” Sklar said.

She said that while commercial recyclers have bought the reusable materials generated by the Westside project, “a citywide program will probably mean that we will have to create new markets for recycled goods, and that could be difficult.”

Mandatory trash separation was first proposed last week by Councilman Hal Bernson, who is fighting expansion of the privately owned Sunshine Canyon Landfill above Granada Hills, in his district.

Normally, such a proposal would be referred to a committee and a public hearing would be conducted.

Bernson said he moved for immediate action because “we are running out of places to dump trash and we have to move fast.”