Trash Plan

Your editorial “Bradley’s Trash Plan” (April 29) correctly addresses the urgent need for implementation of a citywide recycling plan.

However, your support for paying for such a plan out of the city’s general revenues would continue to hide the extent of our waste management crisis from the average Los Angeles resident who has come to regard anything to do with trash disposal as “free.”

With each local resident producing a ton and a half of trash annually, and all major landfills serving the city reaching capacity or scheduled for closure within two to three years, it is imperative that people are made aware of the actual cost of our “throwaway” society.

Only then will we be able to garner universal support for reform of our waste management system which must include changes in our behavior as consumers as well as individual commitment to recycling.

In an effort to increase public awareness, I have introduced Assembly Bill 1101 which will require that every household in the state be notified quarterly of its share of the costs associated with collection, transportation and disposal of solid waste produced by all residential households in the county.

Armed with this information, the average citizen will have a greater incentive to become actively involved in reducing his or her contribution to the 39 million tons of trash we are currently generating annually in California.

MARIAN W. LA FOLLETTE

Assemblywoman

R-Northridge