Recycling Clogs the Air, Chick Says

Just when residents of West Los Angeles had reason to feel virtuous about recycling, a San Fernando Valley councilwoman comes up with this complaint:

Saving Westside landfill space is having a lousy effect on the air.

That’s because 20 truckloads a week of the Westside’s old cottage cheese containers, wine bottles and newspapers are being hauled to the Valley and Downtown to be sorted, a rate that may eventually reach 150 truckloads a week with the upcoming expansion of the recycling program.

All those truck trips generate a lot of exhaust emissions.

“While we’re doing wonderful things to reduce the waste stream, I’m concerned we’re messing up the air,” said Councilwoman Laura Chick, whose Valley district includes a recycling center in Reseda, where about a third of the stuff is hauled.

Despite five years of effort, city officials have failed to find a site for a recycling center in pricey West Los Angeles.

Officials said Wednesday that they hope to close a deal next month for a site in an industrial area of Palms. Under the deal, a private contractor, Best Way Recycling, which runs the Reseda and Downtown centers, would develop the site by early next year and buy the city’s recyclables for about $14 a ton to resell at a profit.

About 25,000 homes on the Westside participate in the recycling program. Beginning Sept. 6, about 4,000 homes will be added to the program each week, officials said.

Los Angeles’ recycling plan calls for each of the city’s five sanitation districts to contain at least one Materials Recovery Facility, where recyclables are sorted, and a transfer station, where garbage and yard trimmings are collected before being hauled in larger trucks to a landfill.

The city has achieved its goals in all but the Westside district, where the lack of both facilities has forced trucks to crisscross the Los Angeles Basin.