Picus Says City Will Delay Extra Trash Fee : Waste disposal: The new program would have penalized residents of communities that are not yet included in L.A.’s recycling effort.

Los Angeles will delay a central element of its new garbage collection program--charging extra fees for extra trash--in communities where residents do not yet have the option of sorting recyclables for separate pickup, City Councilwoman Joy Picus said Tuesday.

Picus said the city Bureau of Sanitation agreed Tuesday not to impose the new trash fees for the time being. Picus said she asked for the delay after learning that the city would place unfair restrictions on 30,000 eastern San Fernando Valley households scheduled to begin the new program next week.

The new refuse collection system is intended to provide an incentive to recycle. The city will limit residents to free weekly pickup of two 60-gallon containers of trash, but entitle them to unlimited collection of separated recyclables. The city currently picks up an unlimited amount of residential trash without charge.

But because the new trash program is being rolled out in areas that are not yet included in the recycling effort, it would effectively penalize residents of those communities.

The new trash collection program is to begin next week in areas of Lake View Terrace, Pacoima, Sunland, Tujunga, North Hollywood, Universal City and Van Nuys. They would have been allowed to discard extra yard waste at no additional charge until fall, but the city was to start levying fees a month from now for extra household trash.

The recycling program, in which residents separate newspapers, glass and cans into 14-gallon bins collected separately by city sanitation crews, will be delayed in those areas until fall because of a shortage of drivers.

Picus met Tuesday with the staff of the sanitation bureau’s recycling and waste reduction division.

“They’ve agreed to do that,” Picus said Tuesday evening. East Valley residents “will be able to use their own containers to put in whatever doesn’t fit into the two 60-gallon containers, and they will be picked up.”

Sanitation bureau officials could not be reached for comment Tuesday night.

The garbage will be collected by trucks equipped with hydraulic arms, operated by a single sanitation worker. The new trucks are more efficient than the current front-loading models and each new truck will replace two of the present trucks.

This will free workers to drive trucks for the recycling program. But the first priority for the recycling program is in the north-central area of Los Angeles. It began there last September but was suspended because of a lack of drivers, sanitation officials said. They do not expect to have enough drivers to begin the recycling program in the East Valley until the fall.

When the program is under way throughout the city within three years, it will be the largest curbside recycling and automated refuse-collection program in the country, covering 720,000 households, sanitation officials said. The program is the city’s effort to comply with a state-mandated policy that requires municipalities to reduce landfill deposits by 25% by 1995 and by 50% by 2000.

Under the program, residents who cannot fit their garbage into the two barrels will have to lease larger containers from the city.

The proposed fee, not yet approved by the City Council, would be about $5.35 a month to replace a 60-gallon can with a 90-gallon can, $8.60 a month for a third 60-gallon can and $12.60 a month for a 90-gallon third can.

After Tuesday’s agreement, residents will now be able to put additional trash in their own barrels at no extra charge. Under the program, if residents used their cans, they would have to purchase a special tag from the sanitation bureau for $5. They could also purchase special 30-gallon bags from the bureau for $5.