California Significantly Lightens Garbage Load : Environment: Trash to landfills is expected to drop 25% by end of 1995. Orange County has cut its waste by 1 million tons.

Could it be that the state that produces more smog and more prison inmates, that suffered through the deepest recession and ran up the most expensive streak of natural disasters in the country, is suddenly showing signs of moderation?

Maybe not in all things. But for the past five years, Californians have been making less garbage. So much less that officials are predicting that the state will have lightened the load trucked off to landfills by 25%, or nearly 12 million tons, by the end of 1995.

California still generates more garbage than any other state. Its 45 million tons a year is enough to fill a four-lane highway from Oregon to Mexico four feet deep.

But if the trend continues, the state’s place atop the throwaway culture could be in peril by 2000. That is when waste management officials in Sacramento hope to see garbage tonnage reduced 50%.

So far, the reduction can be credited partly to the recession. People with less to consume have less to throw away. But that is only part of the story. Recycling, once a novelty, now is serious business.

“It is happening in Orange County,” said Phil Sansone, chairman of the Orange County Waste Management Commission. “Projections are down a million tons for 1994” to 3.4 million tons.

“The No. 1 reason is the recession and reduction in construction, because construction material is heavier,” Sansone said. “Overall, it’s the recession but also the success of the recycling programs throughout the county.”

Five years ago, when the Legislature decided to launch a campaign against the rising accumulation of garbage that was threatening to use up remaining landfill space within 20 years, only 35 curbside recycling programs existed in the state. Today, there are 470 serving 4.5-million single-family households. The number includes about 580,000 households in Los Angeles.

The impetus for change came from legislation passed in 1989 that created the California Waste Management Board and gave it the authority to require hundreds of municipalities to develop plans to reduce, reuse or recycle solid waste. The board was given the power to impose fines of up to $10,000 a day on cities and counties that did not submit plans.

The board also was given the power of the purse to stimulate the creation or expansion of recycling businesses. It has authorized $7 million in low-interest loans to a score of businesses employing 300 people. These businesses are expected to handle about 800,000 tons of recyclable materials.

According to the board, nearly 21% of the state’s solid waste--from newspapers, grocery bags, glass bottles and plastic containers to uneaten food, lawn shavings, tin cans and tires--is being recycled, putting the 25% statewide goal within reach by the end of next year.

Sansone said Orange County is making steady progress toward the 25% goal.

But not every city and county in the state will meet it, said Jesse Huff, chairman of the waste management board.

“Some communities are ahead of their counterparts,” Huff said. “But there are some places in financially strapped rural areas that have asked the board for a reduced goal, and, in some instances, we have granted that.”

Environmental groups that keep an eye on the garbage issue are cautiously optimistic that the goals can be met.

“The Integrated Waste Management Board is basing its prediction for 1995 on projections, not on hard data,” said Lance King of the nonprofit Californians Against Waste. “We won’t have the full picture until the end of this year when the data from around the state will be in.”

But King pointed to several indications that the state will meet its 25% goal next year.

“Local governments, private waste haulers and private industry together have spent hundreds of millions of dollars to achieve the goals set by the state,” King said.

As further evidence, he pointed to the success of the 1986 bottle bill, which called for recycling 80% of all beverage containers. For the third year in a row, King said, Californians have exceeded the rate by recycling 11 to 12 million bottles annually.

Another piece of legislation, a 1991 newsprint recycling law, also is playing a key role in the campaign to cut down garbage, King said.

The law, which requires that 25% of newsprint be composed of recycled fiber, led to a $750-million investment in recycling facilities by paper mills in the West, King said.

“All this shows people are squarely behind recycling,” he said. “In California, it’s safe to say you now have more people recycling than voting.”

Of the 529 communities required to submit plans for municipal recycling programs, only 30 have not complied, said Pat Macht, deputy director of the waste management board.

Macht said most communities have spent between $25,000 and $100,000 to prepare their plans. A few places, such as Los Angeles, have spent a lot more.

The city has spent $2.5 million to develop a plan for diverting solid waste from local landfills. In addition to curbside recycling for single-family homes, the city has set up a network of groups to provide businesses with information they need to recycle commercial and industrial waste.

Macht said it is natural for Southern California cities to take the lead because half the garbage in the state is generated by Los Angeles, Orange and San Diego counties.

According to Joan Edwards, the head of Los Angeles’ solid waste management office, that city in 1990 was recycling about 21% of the nearly 5 million tons of garbage generated each year.

“We have every reason to believe we are going to meet the 25% goal,” Edwards said.

She said surveys by her office indicate that a majority of businesses contacted have begun to recycle waste. She also said the city’s slow-starting household recycling program is making progress.

Times staff writer Mark I. Pinsky contributed to this report.