Expanded Westside Recycling Service Put Off Indefinitely

A much anticipated curbside recycling program, scheduled to begin on the Westside nine months ago, has been postponed indefinitely in most neighborhoods.

Curbside collection of glass, aluminum, plastic bottles and newspapers has begun at more than 25,000 homes in Brentwood, Pacific Palisades, Palms and Westchester as part of a pilot program by the Bureau of Sanitation.

But another 125,000 homes in Los Angeles west of La Brea Avenue do not receive the service because of a shortage of funds and the lack of a refuse facility on the Westside, sanitation officials said.

The inability to obtain easy-access recycling is particularly upsetting to many people in a region renowned for its environmental consciousness. Sixty percent of Los Angeles’ environmental groups make their homes on the Westside.

“Venice is such a progressive area,” said Venice artist Jacquie Hud said. “It is kind of amusing that we are one of the areas that doesn’t have home recycling.”

Hud said she would like to have a recycling truck come to her home to spare her the “huge ordeal” of her monthly trips to a recycling center in Santa Monica.

Jacques Andre, a member of Homeowners of South Westwood, is also frustrated by the delay.

“It’s disappointing because I think most Westside residents really want it to occur,” Andre said.

He takes his cans, bottles and newspapers to a supermarket once a week. But, like many homeowners, he finds the ritual “annoying. . . . You go at some hours, and there is no one there to take it. So you have to haul it all home and then come back over again.”

Bureau of Sanitation officials said Westside residents have responded enthusiastically where the program has begun--an observation confirmed by a Pacific Palisades activist.

“We just love it,” said Rita Dalessio, chairwoman of the Pacific Palisades Community Council. “People in this area are very interested in being part of the solution instead of part of the problem.”

Dalessio estimated that she recycles 95% of the material that she can into 14-gallon bins supplied by the city, compared to 10% when she had to haul the stuff herself.