Widespread Curbside Recycling Program Will Get Under Way Today

The city’s first curbside recycling begins today, eventually to expand to thousands of homes.

The program ultimately will involve 26,000 single-family homes in the Garden Grove Sanitary District, which includes most of Garden Grove east of Knott Street and about 2,000 homes in Westminster and 4,000 more in an unincorporated area between Garden Grove and Anaheim.

The program will begin in the district’s northwest corner near the intersection of Gilbert Street and Katella Avenue and work its way south in succeeding days and weeks.

“If we had tried to do this two years ago, I think we would have run into a lot of opposition,” said Ronald D. Cates, general manager of the Garden Grove Sanitary District. “But now we’ve had Earth Day, and every day there’s something in the news about recycling. People have realized that from time to time they have to change the way they live.”

Each home will be delivered two barrels: a black one for trash and a green one for recyclable materials, such as glass and plastic bottles, aluminum and tin cans, phone books and junk mail. Every week trash trucks will empty the black barrels, and on alternate weeks they will empty the green barrels.

The recyclable trash will be hauled to a facility in Anaheim, where it will be sorted and sold. The money the district earns will help defray the cost of the program. Funding for launching the recycle effort--including the purchase of truck and cans--came from a $6-million bond issue.

The impetus for the program came from the passage of Assembly Bill 939, which requires that all cities in California reduce their unrecycled waste by 25% by 1995 and 50% by 2000. Cities not complying will face a $10,000 a day fine, according to Cates.

A similar pilot program with 11,000 homes in Anaheim delivered a reduction of over 28%, Cates said.

Although the program does not service apartment and condominium complexes and businesses, Cates said options are being studied. One possibility is to put dividers in the large trash bins at those locations to separate garbage for recycling.

Cates said all customers should have received an information kit, including a calendar listing the scheduled pickups. The district also will provide, on request, a smaller barrel for those who feel the larger bin is to unwieldy.

A recycling hot line has been set up to field questions from the public. The number is (714) 632-1576.