County Recycles Idea of Composting : Environment: The San Gabriel Valley’s first broad-based program will start in a few months. With increased incentives, it has become one of the ‘hottest green trends of the ‘90s,’ an advocate says.

Clippings from grass, trees and shrubs--as well as weeds and kitchen scraps--from houses throughout Altadena will soon make their way into back yard compost bins in what county officials hope becomes a model of one of the hottest items to hit the environmental movement since recycling.

The San Gabriel Valley’s first, broad-based compost program--one of a handful of such programs in the state--is expected to begin in the next few months.

Back yard composting once was considered a foul-smelling practice reserved only for die-hard gardeners, farmers or eccentrics, such as Altadena’s compost guru Zeke the Sheik (whose rotting mound has long irritated county officials). But now it may become the subject of cocktail party chatter, complete with debates on how to best aerate a pile and whether one should buy a recycled-plastic bin, a wooden container or a chicken-wire structure.

“Back yard composting has turned out to be one of the hottest green trends of the ‘90s,” says composting advocate John Roulac, who runs a Pasadena environmental products business, Harmonious Technologies.

As if to prove Roulac’s point, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors late last month approved establishment of a voluntary, back yard composting project in Altadena, the first such county-sponsored effort. Any Altadena resident is eligible to participate, officials said.

In the composting process, time and heat break down materials to their basic elements. Some composting procedures require frequent maintenance. Others require minimal attention, such as throwing plant materials and organic wastes into a closed bin and waiting for bacteria and microorganisms to foster decomposition. The end result is the creation of humus, which can be used to condition the soil and function as fertilizer.

Plenty of incentives exist for government officials to embrace composting as part of a strategy for coming to grips with the region’s waste disposal problem.

The crux of the problem is the 50,000 tons of trash generated in Los Angeles County every day. Landfills are rapidly filling, and efforts to find new disposal sites have met with community opposition.

In recognition of the disposal dilemma, state law now requires that municipalities reduce their landfill wastes by 25% by 1995 and 50% by the year 2000.

Back yard composting is seen as a method that can help reduce the amount of trash going to dumps. “A substantial portion of waste delivered to county landfills is . . . back yard material,” said Supervisor Michael Antonovich, who authored the county’s composting proposal.

Indeed, yard wastes account for 20% to 40% of the trash going to regional landfills, trash experts say.

Antonovich predicted that “the successful operation of this pilot program will lead to its expansion throughout the county.”

Details of the Altadena program are being developed, according to Kathi Delegal, who heads the county’s Department of Public Works recycling office.

But she said the project will include an educational component that teaches how to compost with the least effort.

Also, each Altadena resident will be able to purchase an inexpensive composting bin for less than $50, she said. This cost can be paid off over an extended time.

It is unclear whether those who volunteer to participate would see any reduction in their overall trash disposal fee. But officials say that in the long run, extending the life of landfills will keep down the overall cost of trash disposal, thus benefiting residents.

In addition, Antonovich and composting aficionados, such as Roulac, say the practice can save home gardeners on fertilizer costs and help minimize the amount of water needed for plantings, which can be mulched with composted material.

Altadena, nestled against the San Gabriel Mountains, was picked because of its semi-rural, residential nature, county officials say.

They added that its selection had nothing to do with the presence of Zeke the Sheik, the alter ego of Timothy Dundon, who rose to local prominence last year with his ongoing battle to keep a monumental compost mound next to his Altadena residence. In pressing his case, Dundon argued that composting and the resulting organic fertilizer can be a cure for many of the world’s problems.

Although county officials’ claims for composting are less cosmic than Dundon’s, they express grand hopes, nonetheless.

“Composting is going to take off soon--this year and the next,” predicted Mike Mohajer, the assistant division engineer for the county’s Department of Public Works waste management section.

Further buoying the prospects for back yard composting locally are results of a survey results last year by Claremont McKenna College’s Rose Institute. Fifty-five percent of San Gabriel Valley residents surveyed indicated they were willing to compost if it would help solve trash-related problems.

Harvey Holden, executive director of the San Gabriel Valley Assn. of Cities, a group that in the mid-1980s studied composting as one of several trash disposal alternatives, cautioned against exaggerating composting’s potential environmental impact. “Composting seems to be one of the lesser solutions to the overall (trash) problem,” he said.

But, Holden added, “when you got a million ants and they all carry just a little bit, then it helps.”