Food, Trash Officials Ponder Ways to Make Molehills Out of Mountains : Recycle: Experts at Irvine ‘fast-food summit’ debate ways to deal with future shortage of landfill space, overload of waste.

At what was billed as the first “fast-food summit,” experts met here Thursday to discuss the leftovers nobody wants: mountains of containers discarded after the hamburgers and tacos are gone.

Californians generate about 8.2 pounds of trash per person a day, and half the state’s garbage comes from Los Angeles, Orange and San Diego counties, said Pat Macht, spokeswoman for the state Integrated Waste Management Board.

Those 1990 figures, the latest available, mean that a Californian who dies at age 70 will have left behind 210,000 pounds of garbage, she said.

Meanwhile, landfill space is running out. “You can see we’re on a collision course,” Macht said.

The vendors, environmentalists, state officials and restaurant chain executives who met here didn’t expect to solve the problem in a day, but the talks could lead to changes for the better in the way fast food is packaged, said Norman McKinnon, marketing director for El Pollo Loco restaurant chain.

At a press conference after the session, McKinnon said participants agreed that they should continue to meet regularly to try to solve their mutual problem.

One debate within the industry, for instance, is whether paper or plastic packaging is better. Each has its advantages and proponents, participants said.

The familiar clam-shell polystyrene hamburger package keeps the food warmer than paper and now can be manufactured without the release of ozone-depleting chlorofluorocarbons, said R. Jerry Johnson, executive director of the Polystyrene Packaging Council in Washington.

“We’re a product that got rid of the CFCs, and we’re the only food product that is recyclable,” Johnson said. “With those (paper) products that have food contamination, you just can’t do that.”

Fast-food restaurateurs, though, said the solution is not that simple.

“It’s all a trade-off, and there is just no answer,” said Valerie Hamm, Taco Bell’s national manager for packaging and product development. Polystyrene containers clearly are not as environmentally evil as once thought, she said, but Taco Bell won’t be rushing back to polystyrene to wrap food because “the public perceived it as the worst thing out there.”

There is no clear-cut winner between the two wrappers, said Gwen Van Roekel of the Californians Against Waste Foundation. “But I would say that most members of the public are against (polystyrene),” she said.

Johnson acknowledged that consumers view paper wrappers as kinder to the environment.

“There’s clearly a lack of education in our own industry,” he said.

Macht, who was the keynote speaker, said the state has told communities to reduce their trash by 50% by 2000. Those that don’t will face fines.

The fast-food industry should be applauded for seeking ways to reduce the amount of trash it produces, Macht said. Still, she noted, fast-food restaurants produce less than 1% of the waste being buried in landfills.

“It’s going to take a variety of things” to solve the problem, she said: “Consumers doing things, businesses doing things, new thinking by packaging companies.”

Households generate more trash than commercial outlets, she said, adding: “It’s going to take a partnership such as the one being created here to solve the solid-waste problem.”

Times correspondent Tom McQueeney contributed to this report.