Recycling Falls 2 Years Behind, Officials Say

A new trash collection and recycling system that is the centerpiece of Los Angeles’ effort to meet state restrictions on landfill dumping has fallen nearly two years behind schedule and could slip further due to financial and logistical problems, city officials say.

Curbside recycling, which was to be offered citywide by this September, will not be fully implemented until June, 1994, at the earliest, according to officials.

And if the program continues to expand at the current slower-than-expected rate, it will not reach all 720,000 Los Angeles households until June, 1995. Further slippage would extend past the state’s July 1, 1995, deadline for cutting landfill dumping, making it more difficult for the city to comply.

Moreover, while curbside service has been extended to about 223,000 households, nearly 30% of the city, the most significant part of the program--recycling of yard wastes like leaves and grass clippings--has yet to start anywhere in Los Angeles.

“The delay isn’t good for recycling,” said Joan Edwards, director of the city’s integrated solid waste management office within the Department of Public Works. “People are crying for curbside and yard waste services. They really want it, and they’ve wanted it for a long time.”

Edwards, who is working with businesses to reduce their waste, said the delays don’t help such recycling missionary work.

“It is rather hard to exhort the commercial and industrial sectors to do more if we’re not providing for recycling in the residential sector,” she said.

Curbside service currently is being extended to about 3,000 new households per week. However, the program was to have expanded at a weekly rate of 6,000 residences, accounting for the delay.

In its budget proposal last fall, the department included enough money to add 6,000 homes per week during the fiscal year that starts July 1. But in his budget package last month, Mayor Tom Bradley cut funding from that and many other programs to cope with what he called the city’s “bleakest financial picture in memory.”

In subsequent budget hearings before the City Council’s Budget and Finance Committee, officials with the Bureau of Sanitation said they had concluded that they couldn’t meet their goal even if funds were restored.

Bradley spokesman Bill Chandler said the goal of 6,000 homes “was never truly realistic.” Moreover, Chandler said, “the mayor placed the highest priorities on police and fire protection,” which required budget cuts “in nearly every department.”

Councilman Zev Yaroslavsky, chairman of the Budget and Finance Committee, did not return several phone calls.

Curbside recycling has reached several areas of the city, including parts of the eastern San Fernando Valley. Residents of single-family homes and small apartments are issued special trash containers and recycling bins. The trash is collected by automated trucks with hydraulic lifts. Another truck picks up glass containers, plastic beverage containers, bundled newspapers and aluminum and tin cans, which are sold to offset part of the cost.

Costing about $200 million--including $70 million for the trash containers--the program is Los Angeles’ response to dwindling dump space and a state law requiring cities and counties to slash landfill dumping at least 25% by 1995--50% by the year 2000.

The law provides for penalties of up to $10,000 a day for localities that fail to comply.

Although the city is counting on help from businesses and government agencies in meeting the goals, the curbside program is a major component of the compliance strategy.

At the present rate, all 112,000 households in the East Valley--the area east of Woodley Avenue--should be phased in by January. In the West Valley--where about 120,000 homes and small apartments await the service--the program is to be rolled out from next February through June, 1994, said Drew Sones, recycling and waste reduction manager for the Bureau of Sanitation.

Since it was launched in September, 1990, the curbside program has faced mind-boggling logistical problems, Sones said. He said automated trucks have not been delivered on time and that estimates of the number of homes each truck could serve proved to be overly optimistic. In addition to those obstacles, officials have also had to coordinate the hiring and training of workers, the marketing of recyclables and education campaigns to get the public on board.

But Sones expressed hope that the problems will be overcome and that funds will be increased next year, allowing the bureau to resume its former pace and extend the program citywide by June, 1994.

“I think we need a little respite here . . . that allows us to fine-tune the system and correct the problems we’ve had at a higher rate,” Sones said. He said he hopes that “we can jump back up to full speed” the next fiscal year.

“Three thousand households a week should not be looked at disparagingly,” said Del Biagi, director of the Bureau of Sanitation. “It’s not a minimal thing that we’re doing, by any stretch. . . . We just have to make the trucks, the people, the efficiency of the program work better so we can do more.”

But Edwards voiced particular concern about delays in yard waste collection, which would contribute the most to waste reduction. In contrast to recyclable containers and newspapers, which represent about 8% or 9% of residential trash, Edwards said, yard waste makes up about 22%.

Collection of yard waste was to start late last year. Now officials say they expect to start a smaller-scale yard waste pilot program in the coming year.

A key obstacle, Sones said, has been a lack of sites to haul and process yard waste into mulch and compost.

Meanwhile, the city’s compliance plan, telling how it will meet state waste reduction rules, is long overdue.

About 84% of cities and counties have filed their plans, said Tom Estes, a spokesman for the California Integrated Waste Management Board. Los Angeles’ plan, which was due last December, will be filed this fall at the earliest.

Edwards, whose waste management office is preparing the plan, said a key study needed for the plan is still being prepared.

The plan will include commercial and industrial waste reduction efforts, along with the curbside program.