Route to Statewide Container Recycling Littered by Barriers : Holes Left in System That Was Supposed to Be in Place Jan. 1

All he wanted to do was to park his long white recycling bins in the parking lots of neighborhood supermarkets.

But for John Griffin, Southern California manager for Reynolds Aluminum Recycling, the mandates of the new California recycling law ran head-on into a raft of local zoning restrictions. Some cities wanted him to enclose the bins within block walls; others wanted him to install landscaping. Some asked for architectural plans or traffic studies.

A few told him no way. Others demanded fees up to $1,000.

“We expected a fight; we expected problems,” Griffin said as California prepared to enter an era of state-imposed recycling. “But it’s been a monumental effort. We never anticipated the number of zoning problems and complications and expenses. We’re still pulling our hair out.”

Jan. 1 Deadline

As grocers and recyclers raced to meet the Jan. 1 deadline for creating a massive statewide recycling collection system, recyclers and state officials said zoning roadblocks and other problems have left significant holes in the network.

Privately run recycling centers--part of a booming new business in the state--were due to be open Friday in more than 2,500 targeted areas statewide. Most are at supermarkets where the centers will reimburse consumers a penny apiece for most kinds of aluminum cans, glass bottles and plastic containers. The one-cent guaranteed refund is the result of compromise legislation hammered out by California environmentalists and beverage distributors and signed by Gov. George Deukmejian in 1986.

State officials tracking the program said they expect recycling service to be available on time in at least 2,350 of the mile-wide target zones. Nearly 160 zones remain unserved, including 57 in sprawling Los Angeles County, said Kate McGuire of the state Conservation Department’s recycling division.

Unserviced areas exist in much of Los Angeles, Cerritos, Compton, Gardena, Huntington Park, Pasadena, Beverly Hills, Long Beach and other cities.

Additional service gaps exist in 16 portions of San Diego County--seven in the city of San Diego--and in eight zones in Orange County, from Anaheim and Santa Ana to Mission Viejo and Newport Beach. The Ventura County cities of Oxnard, Thousand Oaks, Ventura and Port Hueneme also have unserviced zones, according to state reports.

Stores in those areas face fines of $100 a day for missing the deadline, McGuire said. Every store in the unserviced zone, from supermarkets to corner convenience stores, will be responsible for paying the fines until they cooperate to open a recycling center. The only other way to avoid the fines is to accept beverage containers returned by customers for the one-cent redemption value, McGuire said.

“You either pay the $100-a-day fine or you must take back the containers in your own store,” she said. A team of about 30 state auditors will begin “flying up, down, here and over there” in the next few weeks, handing out fines and dividing the state until they “know exactly what’s uncovered,” she said.

Although state officials, relying on reports from recyclers, said they were close to meeting their goals for the Jan. 1 deadline, the dawdling yearlong effort to establish the centers drew criticism this week from the law’s author.

‘Slow Beginning’

Assemblyman Burt Margolin (D-Los Angeles), who brought beverage distributors to the bargaining table to draft the bill, called it “a very slow beginning.” State figures on the number of centers now open may be misleading because some still fail to meet the state minimum of 30 hours a week or to post required signs to show their locations, Margolin said.

“It’s not supposed to be an obstacle course for consumers to return their containers,” the legislator said in an interview. “I’ve been going to supermarkets and going to store managers . . . and I’ve found that many centers listed as opening and functioning are not really open and functioning. What may appear to be an intact network may, in fact, not be in existence.”

Centers began opening on a widespread basis Oct. 1, when the state began its policy of paying 1 cent per container, but they were given until New Year’s Day to open without facing fines. Under the complex law, one center must exist within half a mile of each major supermarket in California.

The law requires beverage distributors to pay 1 cent into a state-administered fund each time they sell a recyclable beverage container. Ultimately, those pennies go to consumers when they return a can or bottle for recycling. Private recyclers channel the penny to the consumer and make a profit from the scrap price of the material when they sell it back to manufacturers.

The system relies on a number of large recyclers who have invested heavily in manpower and equipment to collect used containers. Some companies have bought huge bins; others are planning to install automatic “reverse vending machines” to accept containers and dispense cash. One firm has developed dome-shaped “igloos” painted bright green, red and blue like holiday ornaments to store recyclables.

State officials said their goal is to recycle 80% of the 12 billion beverage containers sold annually. In past years, Californians have recycled only about half their aluminum cans, 18% of their glass bottles and 1% of their plastic containers.

Recyclers Optimistic

So far, the prospects look promising, recyclers said. Already, aluminum recycling appears to be booming, and big advertising campaigns by businesses are expected to boost the haul in glass and plastic bottles, they said. If early recycling rates are low, the law automatically boosts the redemption rate to 2 cents or even 3 cents per containers in coming years.

“I’m getting 100% more than I anticipated at this point,” Ron Schweitzer, general manager of Stanton-based Mobile Recycling Corp., said this week with nearly all of his 250 centers open for business. “I’m at where I expected to be in six or seven months.”

Yet other recyclers and environmental groups say it is too early to tell how well the system will work, especially in light of start-up problems.

Kelly Smith, research director of Californians Against Waste, a nonprofit group that helped draft the law, said environmentalists are “nervous about those centers.” Although the program seems to be gathering momentum, Smith voiced concern over the lack of emphasis some stores seem to have placed on recycling.

“There are minimal sign requirements, and some aren’t even meeting those,” he said. “A lot of consumers don’t know about the program.”

One center described by state officials as open this week was one operated by 20/20 Recycle Centers at a Safeway store in West Los Angeles. On a Tuesday afternoon, a reporter found the bins to be unmanned and situated at a far corner of the parking lot. A sign intended to mark their location was lying beside a pool of water.

In the store window, another sign heralded “instant cash” for recyclable containers, but gave no clue that a center was nearby.

Margolin said he happened to visit that location during a series of spot inspections he conducted in recent weeks. “Steam was coming out of my ears” at what he saw, the legislator said. He emphasized the importance of getting the program off to a good start, saying that a lot of consumers “are approaching this skeptically. First impressions are extremely important.”

Stores Defended

However, Steven Koff, president of the 1,200-member Southern California Grocers Assn., defended stores by saying the start-up effort has occurred at the busiest time of their year.

“The signs the state sent to us to put in store windows arrived in mid-November, the start of the holiday season,” he said. “It was lost in the volume of things. Grocers certainly have to put their business first.

“But grocers are aware of the situation. Now that the holidays are over, you will see a very strong public awareness campaign.”

Although stores had a year to gear up for the new law, many struggled at first to deal with its requirements, Koff acknowledged. Existing recyclers wanted to handle the new business, but it became apparent there were not enough of those firms to do the work. New companies were formed. Grocers took months, Koff said, to examine what each had to offer and to sort out the good from the bad.

“We were almost into summertime when some of those decisions were made,” he said. “But I don’t think the grocers were dragging their feet.”

Recyclers reported other problems. Parking lot owners wanted to charge rent on the space taken by trailers and storage bins. In some cases, the recyclers said, it took weeks--and the lobbying efforts of grocery store chains--to persuade landlords that the penny-a-can centers could not survive paying rents.

Local zoning laws became another hurdle. Schweitzer of Mobile Recycling Corp. complained that “each city is like it’s own little country,” and often they gave recyclers “the same paper work they would for a 13- or 14-story building.”

Two cities wanted him to install ivy-covered trellises around his 21-foot bins, Schweitzer said. Manhattan Beach asked for $1,088 in fees, including $300 for an environmental report. The city of Simi Valley wanted $1,535 in fees.

When a company official wrote Simi Valley to complain, the city tacked on $365 for an environmental study. Frank Brutt, Simi Valley’s community development director, said the fees are considered a deposit, aimed at covering the costs of preparing city reports. If the money is not used, he said, it is returned to the applicant.

Such conflicts have not been easily resolved.

‘Much More Difficult’

“The municipality problem began to mushroom on us,” said David F. Little, vice president of Irvine-based 20/20 Recycle Centers, one of the state’s largest recyclers. “That was an incredible problem for a long time--many weeks. The same with the landlord problem. It’s been much more difficult than anyone realized or anticipated.”

As the deadline neared, 20/20 was still struggling to open the final 190 of its 815 centers. Although all of its centers were expected to open on time, about 30% of them are “alternative centers” using tables and garbage-size plastic cans, Little said, because landlord and zoning disputes had still not been resolved.

“We’re talking about creating a brand new industry in the state of California,” he said.

The question is whether, with small profit margins and big payrolls, they can survive. For instance, 20/20 Recycle Centers, a new company opened by Canada-based Agra Industries Ltd., will employee 1,200 people, Little said.

The company has committed $11 million to the project, and Little is optimistic. “We believe in the economics of the program,” he said. “We’re ready to go into the marketing phase, and that will really start to make the centers work.”

But Griffin, who has helped to create about 100 Reynolds Aluminum Recycling centers in Southern California, said the 2,500 state zones has led to an oversaturation of the industry. “The real test will be after January,” he predicted, “when we’re seeing who survives and who doesn’t.”