$6.5-Million Recycling Center Opens in Burbank : Environment: The municipal facility will greatly expand the city’s recovery capacity and make it easier for residents to participate.

Burbank opened a new facility Thursday that will expand the city’s recycling capacity fivefold and probably allow the city to meet state-mandated recycling targets several years before deadline.

The city-owned Burbank Recycling Center, which will make recycling easier for residents, was praised by state and local officials during a dedication ceremony and public tour.

“For a city this size, this is clearly one of the best in the state,” said Jesse R. Huff, a member of the state Integrated Waste Management Board, after touring the site at 500 S. Flower St. In recycling, he added, “Burbank is clearly at the head of the parade and this facility will keep it there.”

About 250 people attended the ceremony, which featured a brass quintet--positioned next to recycling bins--that played everything from “Happy Days Are Here Again” to Edvard Grieg’s “Hall of the Mountain King” as well-dressed dignitaries munched fruit, cookies and small sandwiches. Rather than cut a ribbon, officials ceremoniously tossed newspapers onto a conveyor belt leading into a giant bundling machine.

Burbank has been providing curbside recycling since 1982 and currently about half the city’s residents recycle at least once a month. The $6.5-million facility was financed by waste disposal fees charged to residents and businesses.

“We will have the capacity to handle 5,000 tons a month instead of only 1,000,” said Steven Maggi, Burbank recycling coordinator. “Right now, we just provide curbside recycling to residents. But we plan to offer recycling services to businesses as well.”

Under a system to be phased in over a three-year period beginning in February, residents will no longer have to sort glass, paper and other products into separate containers. Instead, residents will put all their recyclable products, except biodegradable yard waste, into 60-gallon blue containers provided by the city.

City workers will collect the recyclables at curbside, but the materials will be sorted at the recycling center by employees of Jefferson Smurfit Corp., which has a contract with the city.

The collection at residences will also become more efficient, Maggi said, because the new trucks are automated.

“Right now, garbage men get out of the truck and empty the containers,” Maggi said. “The new trucks have an automated arm to collect trash. If the container is in the right place, the driver won’t have to get out of the truck.”

In addition to the blue containers, residents will receive black containers for trash and green ones for yard waste.

The center is designed to help the city meet state-mandated recycling goals that require municipalities to recycle 25% of their solid waste by 1995 and 50% by 2000. Burbank now recycles about 28% of its waste, Maggi said. The city’s goal is to recycle 48.5% of its waste by 1995 and 56.8% by 2000.

Burbank is far ahead of the rest of the state, Huff said. Statewide, only 5 million tons of the 45 million tons of trash produced by Californians are recycled, he said.