Book of Places to Give Old Goods New Life

Three years ago Le Freres Taix restaurant found a way to recycle its used glass, plastic and cardboard, but not its extra food.

Then Mike Taix, general manager of the French country-style eatery, found a directory of food banks.

Taix looked through the booklet, and the Echo Park restaurant began donating 20 pounds a day of soup, bread, chicken, rice and vegetables. A local homeless shelter feeds 70 people with the bounty.

“Frequently we’re not presented with a lot of options,” Taix says. “This information helped us find an excellent solution.”

Taix found the directory at the Integrated Solid Waste Management Office of the City of Los Angeles, the agency that develops and implements ways to reduce L.A.’s trash by such means as recycling and composting. A 1989 state law requires each California city to divert 50% of its waste from disposal facilities by the year 2000.

Now in addition to the food bank publication, the office has produced “Put It to Good Re-Use: A Directory of Donation Opportunities for Los Angeles.” The booklet lists 47 organizations that recycle items ranging from appliances to computers to mattresses to video cassettes by arranging for them to go to charities.

“Put It to Good Re-Use” lists organizations that accept baby furniture, bicycles, athletic equipment, gardening supplies, theater props, arts materials, eyeglasses, film, lumber and even hazardous materials.

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For people who want to recycle books, records and magazines, a section lists the schedules of fund-raising book sales for a dozen local public libraries. Another section lists 28 thrift shops that accept donated goods, going beyond the well-known Goodwill and Salvation Army to include shops such as one that supports a laundry service for AIDS patients.

The directory tells which agencies pick up donations and where they will send the items. (Many of those listed are “facilitator organizations” that collect and distribute donated items to schools, shelters, museums and hospitals here and in other countries.) Donors can reduce disposal costs and gain tax credits.

The booklet was developed after the Waste Management Office was asked for names of places to recycle unusual items and materials such as computers and construction dry wall, says Jennifer Pinkerton, a volunteer who compiled the 54-page document.

“We got tired of saying have you called a local thrift shop,” says Joan Edwards, director of the office, “and we couldn’t find any lists.

“With a list, people can spend time developing a (recycling) program rather than doing basic research on where to take materials.

“Also, people might think they only want to donate toys. But if someone working in a hospital looks at the directory, perhaps they are going to say, here’s an organization that donates excess (medical) equipment to Third World countries.”

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The directory will grow as more organizations become aware of it, Edwards says. Meanwhile the Waste Management Office plans a list of businesses that repair and refurbish products. “It will keep things out of landfills by giving them a second life,” Edwards says.

The free directory can be obtained by phoning (213) 237-1444 or by writing the Integrated Solid Waste Management Office, Room 580, City Hall East, 200 N. Main St., Los Angeles, Calif. 90012.