West Valley Residents Top City in Recycling of Household Waste : Environment: Much of the success is attributed to strong participation in a pilot program involving trimmings, officials say.

West San Fernando Valley residents participating in a city curbside recycling program are diverting a higher percentage of waste away from landfills than any other area of the city, officials said Tuesday.

About 35% of waste generated by households in the West Valley was put aside for recycling in May, compared with a citywide average of about 9%, according to Los Angeles Bureau of Sanitation officials.

Most of the West Valley’s success is attributed to its participation in a new yard trimmings recycling program that is fully implemented in only one other area of the city, said Gyl Elliott, public information director for the bureau’s recycling and waste reduction division. The other program, in South-Central Los Angeles, produces less material because lots and yards there are generally smaller, she said.

A pilot program for yard trimmings has recently been launched in the East Valley, Elliott said.

Nonetheless, waste officials laud the West Valley efforts.

“After reviewing these numbers, it’s obvious that West Valley residents are excited about the city’s curbside recycling program,” Bureau of Sanitation Director Del Biagi said.

Curbside recycling is a centerpiece of local efforts to comply with a state law requiring a 25% reduction in landfill dumping by mid-1995.

Under the city program, which is being implemented in stages, the city collects recyclables from 440,000 of the 720,000 Los Angeles households that are eventually to be covered--including nearly 200,000 of the 268,000 Valley households.

In May, residents participating in the program recycled more than 598 tons of material, including plastic bottles, aluminum, metal and tin cans, glass containers, newspaper, corrugated cardboard and brown paper bags.

Residents also recycled more than 1,100 tons of yard trimmings at the curb, including grass clippings, leaves and tree branches, which a city vendor uses to create a natural, organic fertilizer.

But Gordon Murley, president of the Woodland Hills Homeowners Organization, said the program can be improved.

“We are only seeing the tip of the iceberg of what can be recycled in the West Valley and elsewhere in the city,” he said.

For example, Murley suggests that the city make the program mandatory and urges that trucks pick up different types of recyclables on different days so that sanitation workers spend less time sorting.