VILLA PARK : City to Begin New Recycling Program

Residents must sort their trash under a new recycling program that starts Monday, city officials said.

The program is aimed at meeting a state law requiring cities to reduce the volume of garbage they produce by 25% by 1995 and 50% by the year 2000. Failure to comply will cost cities up to $10,000 a day.

Each residence has been provided with two 110-gallon cans, a tan receptacle for household trash and a green can for recyclable waste, said Mark Gregorek, director of operations for Briggeman Disposal Services Inc., which is based in Los Alamitos.

Residents do not have to divide recyclable waste further into stacks of newspaper, plastic or aluminum as in other cities’ recycling programs.

Each of the new containers are more than three times larger than standard 30-gallon trash cans and should be all a single house needs, Gregorek said. But he said extra tan cans are available for $3.50 a month.

Additional green cans are free to promote recycling.

However, since the new system is automated and designed around the 110-gallon containers, it cannot accommodate standard cans or bags of garbage.

The new program will add $2.40 more to the average $9.25 monthly disposal bill, which has caused some residents to complain that it costs more and provides less service than before, Gregorek said.

“Some people are saying, ‘Why do I have to pay more and separate my trash?’ But that’s not Briggeman Disposal dictating that, it’s the society,” he said. “We’ve thrown too much away over the last 30 years.

“If Orange County doesn’t do anything, in 10 years there’s going to be no more landfill space. We’ll have to haul it out to the desert by rail and they’ll be having to pay four times what they’re paying now,” Gregorek said. “It’s a lot cheaper to (recycle) now.”