Panel OKs Citywide Plan for Residents to Haul Toxics to Safe Site

A citywide program aimed at providing residents a safe location to dispose of pesticides, paints and other toxic materials was approved Tuesday by a Los Angeles City Council committee.

The $1.3-million plan, to be considered by the full council today, includes a $637,600 pilot project in two areas for door-to-door hazardous-waste pickups.

The citywide program was a compromise between proponents of the door-to-door program in small pockets of the city’s Eastside and council members representing other city areas where no such toxic disposal programs exist. Last week, several council members objected to the cost of the door-to-door program, which worked out to about $30 a home.

It is illegal to simply toss in the trash hazardous waste products such as paints, insecticides, motor oil, cleaning agents, antifreeze and swimming pool supplies. The various materials, if taken to a regular landfill, could seep into and contaminate the ground water.

But there is no inexpensive way for residents to rid their homes of the materials, so they are either stored away--posing potential dangers--or discarded illegally. Officials said that besides causing possible ground-water contamination, the illegal dumping of materials can trigger explosions or fires if the toxics mix on the way to a landfill.

The only alternative to household storage or illegal dumping of the materials has been the costly practice of having a licensed trash hauler transport the materials to a landfill licensed to accept such materials.

If approved by the full council, the citywide program would involve the staging of seven “events” over a one-year period in which residents in various areas of the city could take their household toxics for disposal.

The city’s Bureau of Sanitation estimates that each collection day would attract between 500 and 5,000 participants, representing about 1% of the households that exist in each of the seven areas.

The main costs would involve the sorting of the materials and their eventual transportation from the collection site to the licensed hazardous-materials landfill. The Bureau of Sanitation estimates that the average household would generate between 18 and 27 gallons of toxic materials, which a contractor would haul away at a cost of between $200 and $300 per 55-gallon drum.

The city would be able to recoup some of the costs by recycling some of the wastes, such as motor oil and paint, officials said.

The citywide program is similar to about 75 others that have been held throughout the state over the past six years. It would be the first of its kind in the city of Los Angeles.

In tandem with the citywide program is the household door-to-door pilot program that would be conducted over six months in the 1st and 14th Council Districts represented by Gloria Molina and Richard Alatorre, respectively. In that program, involving about 10,000 households in each of the two districts, residents would call the Bureau of Sanitation when they wanted their materials picked up and then the bureau would eventually have them transported to a safe location.