Trash Recycling Sought to Ease Pressure on Landfills

Mayor Tom Bradley, reviving a proposal that once cost a predecessor his job, announced a comprehensive trash recycling program Friday aimed at cutting by nearly half the amount of garbage destined for landfills.

If enacted by the City Council, as expected, the plan would require residents of all 720,000 houses and small apartment buildings in the city to put their glass and plastic bottles, aluminum cans, newspaper and yard wastes into separate containers for garbage collection. A recycling program for businesses and for buildings of six or more residential units will be proposed later.

“It is nothing less than an environmental vision of the future--a time not long from now when the people of this city will regard their trash as a resource to be conserved and reused,” Bradley said in announcing the plan, which could begin this summer.

The proposal, created by a panel of city officials and outside consultants during the last nine months, comes at a time when the city is running out of room to dump its trash.

The city’s primary landfill in Lopez Canyon is scheduled to close in 1992. A proposal to stretch its capacity and keep it open through 2005 is being fought by residents in its San Fernando Valley neighborhood. And privately owned landfills that would accept the city’s trash are scarce and expensive, city officials said.

Key City Council members, who said they had been anticipating the recycling proposal, said they think it will be approved although some struggle is likely over how to pay for its roughly $33 million yearly cost.

In his annual budget proposal announced Thursday, the mayor proposed a trash collection fee and suggested it could be increased later to pay for “other solid waste programs.”

“Over my dead body” was Councilman Zev Yaroslavsky’s response to the fee proposal.

But the recycling program itself received immediate, enthusiastic support. Councilman Marvin Braude, who will steer the recycling program through the council and who joined Bradley at a City Hall news conference to announce it, said:

‘We Want a Better City’

“It’s sending a clear message that the people of Los Angeles want to move forward. . . . We want a better city . . . and we’re going to do it in a cost-efficient way,” Braude said.

Council President John Ferraro said the council would likely support the mandatory program, as it has backed other legislation aimed at controlling growth of landfills. Councilman Ernani Bernardi, whose district contains the Lopez Canyon landfill and who has been a leader on waste management issues, said the proposal is “long overdue. . . . Recycling is a must.”

Limited recycling projects are already in the works in several council districts.

Even former Mayor Sam Yorty, who was swept into office in 1961 in part for his promise to drop then-Mayor Norris Poulson’s program of mandatory separation of recyclable trash, said in an interview Friday that Bradley’s plan is “much more workable” than the one he had campaigned against.

For several years beginning in the 1950s, residents were required to save cans for a once-a-month-pickup. Trash that was not properly separated was left at the curb. At the time, Yorty called the separation requirement “coercion against the housewives of this city.”

While generally approving of Bradley’s proposal, Yorty could not resist taking a poke at his old rival: Why, Yorty wondered, didn’t the mayor unveil his plan--and accompanying price tag--before he was reelected Tuesday?

Under the proposal, each household would be given three containers: one 12- to 14-gallon plastic rectangular box for aluminum cans, glass and plastic bottles, one 60- or 90-gallon container for yard debris and one 60- or 90-gallon container for all other household garbage that is not recycleable. The larger containers would be suitable for automatic collection by specialized trucks.

Newspapers, to be recycled, would be stacked on top of the can-and-bottle bin.

Once-a-Week Pickups

Pickups would continue to be once a week.

Though separation of materials would be mandatory, homeowners would retain the right to save recyclable materials for private sale. Scavenging would be illegal on trash pickup days only.

About 90,000 households would begin recycling all but the yard wastes as early as July. The rest of the households would be phased in within three years. Recycling of yard waste would be added two years later.

During the first five years the program would cost about $46 million a year, with an estimated $13 million earned back through the sale of recyclable material and reduced landfill costs. The annual cost could balloon to $72 million a year during the next 25 years.

Among the financing programs being explored by a special mayoral task force is a $3.66 per household per month fee to be levied against taxpayers, according to Ed Avila, chairman of the Board of Public Works.

Braude said it may be possible to work the added recycling costs into the general budget, though he was not able to identify what programs would have to be cut.

“You’re always paying for it in one way or another,” Avila said.

Among the expenses are the replacement of 400 trash trucks with more modern, automated vehicles, and the purchase of millions of recycling bins for distribution to residents. The Sanitation Department would add 69 staff positions to oversee the program.

Officials said there are some risks that the program could cost much more than projected. Markets for recycled materials could dry up or become very competitive and that could drive prices down, they said. And as yet, there is no workable market for composting material, which officials hope to create with recycled yard trash.

Public Acceptance

Avila said public acceptance remains the stumbling block to mandatory recycling.

“It’s a question of the elevation of public awareness and willingness to participate,” he said. Until two to three years ago, people balked at the idea of having to separate their garbage, he said.

“It’s been long in coming, but it’s here now,” Avila said. “History is history.”

Stephen Tobia, one of the private consultants who worked with the city to formulate the plans, said public opinion surveys showed that 80% of Los Angeles residents would cooperate. Only 6% indicated they would likely not cooperate under any circumstances, he said.

In general, cities with similar programs--including Santa Monica, Glendale, Burbank, and Pasadena--report good public cooperation, Tobia said.