City May Trash Busy but Noisy Recycling Center

Judy Handler pulled her white Chrysler convertible to a stop at the recycling center on Crenshaw Boulevard in Rolling Hills Estates and quickly went about the business of unloading the bundles of old newspapers and empty bottles she had crammed in the car’s trunk and back seat.

“This has been a saving grace,” the Palos Verdes Estates resident said, explaining that she has been recycling at the center for five years. Her city soon will begin a curbside recycling program, however.

A few moments later, a bare-chested Bill Cooke of Rolling Hills reached the front of the line and quickly unloaded his trash. Unlike other centers that require you to sort your garbage like laundry before they will take it, he said the center in Rolling Hills Estates is not fussy.

“They do it all for you,” he said.

For two decades, the venerable recycling center has operated next door to the municipal horse stables and a stone’s throw from City Hall. Open four days a week, it has become a local institution of sorts, visited by people living in the four peninsula cities as well as in numerous neighboring communities.

The center is not so popular with about two dozen nearby homeowners, who for years have complained about the noise and dust generated by the center. Because of the complaints, Rolling Hills Estates city officials will hold a public hearing at 8:30 Tuesday night to determine whether to revoke the center’s permit to operate.

“We have complained about every three years over the past 15 years, and whenever we have complained they have done something about” the noise or dust, said Rolling Hills Estates Councilman Peter Weber, who lives next to the center.

“But it doesn’t take too long . . . and it’s back to where it was before,” he said. “Finally, we have said enough is enough.”

Officials with the county sanitation districts, the agency that operates the center, say they have taken numerous steps to minimize noise and dust and to deal with neighbors’ complaints.

The center, on half an acre of a landfill closed by the county in 1980, was founded by a local chapter of the American Assn. of University Women in 1970 to raise money for various charities. The group ran the center for six years using only volunteers before asking the sanitation districts to take it over.

On the average, 160 vehicles come to the center each day, Wednesdays through Fridays. On Saturday, the number increases to about 200.

“We just took a record of 206 cars about three weeks ago,” center worker Victor Prado said the other day with a trace of pride in his voice. “Cars were backed up for three hours.”

Bill George, recycling coordinator for the sanitation districts, said the center operates on a break-even basis. Since 1977, it has bought more than 1,000 tons of aluminum cans and 2,300 tons of glass. It has also purchased 25,000 tons of newspapers, he said.

That, in turn, has translated into $1.7 million being paid out to customers or to 80 charities, as well as to organizations such as the Boy Scouts, the League of Women Voters or private schools. Last year, about $45,000 to $50,000 was given to charity by customers, who simply tell the center’s cashier which charity should receive their donation.

Center workers said they have tried to respond to the homeowners’ complaints. Last year, for instance, a noise consultant was hired and a 15-foot wall was erected in front of the giant dumpsters where glass bottles are stored.

Additionally, center workers routinely water down the dirt road leading into the center off Crenshaw in order to minimize dust. And the mechanical device that crushes cans has been enclosed to reduce noise.

“‘I am sure we are not perfect, but I think we are as unobtrusive as can be,” George said.

The neighbors’ complaints prompted the center to apply last year for a $79,000 grant from the state Department of Conservation to move the operation farther north to another part of the landfill. However, the department turned down the request.

“We had a passing score, but there were other programs they deemed more important,” George said.

Some homeowners concede that efforts by the center to cut down noise have been a partial success. “It isn’t as bad as it used to be, frankly,” said Norm Unis, president of the 28-member Roanwood Homeowners Assn. “They have worked on it.”

Nevertheless, Unis and others contend that the center still creates too much dust and noise. When they are outdoors, they complain, the sounds of crashing bottles is particularly irksome. The closest home to the center is about 75 yards away.

“This is the kind of noise I (put up with) when I am in my yard by my pool entertaining people,” said Vincent DiFiore, whose home is about 80 yards from the center. “. . . It is almost galling to me to know this operation is going, and it is so close to me.”

Unis and others said that homeowners were once promised by the city and the sanitation districts that the center would be relocated if it became successful. They also contend that since Rolling Hills Estates began its own curbside recycling program last spring, the center is no longer needed. Rancho Palos Verdes also has a recycling program, and the Palos Verdes Estates’ program starts next month.

Councilman Weber contends that the center will eventually have to shut down or move anyway because the county plans to use the site--along with adjacent acreage once used for the landfill--for a golf course. State water quality officials are presently investigating whether a golf course can be built on the land without contaminating underground water tables, he said.

Weber, who has lived in the Roanwood area for more than 20 years and is enthusiastic about the golf course, predicted that there will be enough support on the council to revoke the center’s permit.

“My guess is it is going to be gone next Tuesday,” he said.