Laggards Need to Get Trash Act Together : Deadline Calls for Reducing Refuse by 25%; Some Cities Have Yet to Start Recycling

A number of Orange County municipalities are playing “beat the clock” with a state deadline for reducing garbage 25% by 1995, and 50% by the year 2000. While more than 21 cities have started recycling progams, some have yet to begin. These include communities as diverse as Santa Ana, Seal Beach, Fullerton, San Clemente and Westminster. Most are supposed to start programs this year, but some, like Seal Beach, have yet to decide which type of recycling program to use. Dana Point got cracking with the new year; others should do the same.

Recycling will not solve all the garbage problems in a state where residents throw away more than 200 million pounds of garbage a day. But earnest efforts to bring communities in line with the state mandates will pay off for everybody. And it doesn’t have to be an inconvenience for residents, even in such communities as Irvine, Laguna Beach, Orange and Mission Viejo where curbside programs ask households to sort newspapers, cans, bottles and glass into three bins. The task may seem burdensome to the uninitiated, but those who already are practicing curbside recycling no doubt can attest to the easy routine households can get into in living with the bins. Some communities have residents toss materials into one large barrel for sorting later, and some do all the work through an automated system.

Whatever the choices of communities, it is time for the handful without programs to get on with it. Orange County is not as bad off on trash as some of its neighbors. The expansion of the Brea-Olinda landfill approved earlier last year by the Board of Supervisors gave the county another 20 years to seek alternative methods of disposing of waste. But the expansion is an expensive interim solution, and Orange County has been the state leader in the production of trash. The more responsibility individuals can take--they produce an estimated 11 pounds per resident--the better.