Unocal and L.A. Join to Sponsor Toxic Roundups

In the homey confines of Mayor Tom Bradley’s garage, Unocal Corp. and the City of Los Angeles plan this morning to announce a series of nine waste roundups to get homeowners to turn in their used motor oil, pesticides, old batteries and other hazardous materials for safe disposal.

Unocal, which has sponsored two previous collection events at its Wilmington refinery, will give $1 million to the effort.

“We can’t do these each month at the refinery,” Unocal spokesman Jim Bray said. “They’re extremely expensive and take a lot of man-hours. . . . But they’ve been so successful that we want to help keep up the initiative.”

The oil firm, which has its corporate headquarters in Los Angeles, will spend up to $100,000 to publicize the roundups, which the city will conduct during fiscal 1991-92. It also will pay $100,000 of the estimated $275,000 it will cost to conduct each roundup, all of which are free to residents.

At a Unocal-sponsored event in April of 1990, 180,000 pounds of hazardous material were collected at the company’s refinery and thus kept from entering the city sewer system.

In recent years, as commercial and industrial sources of hazardous waste have come under government regulatory control, attention has shifted to hazards forgotten under kitchen sinks and in residential garages. As cities have set up collection schemes, some companies associated with hazardous waste have stepped forward to support such roundups.

“Part of it is their effort to break down the ‘them-against-us’ perception,” said Lance King, community outreach director of Californians Against Waste. “Industries which have been hammered over their handling of hazardous waste want the public to recognize that the public generates hazardous waste as well.”