Recycling Program Accepting Magazines

Your old magazines may soon be coming back to you, in a different form.

Los Angeles Bureau of Sanitation officials recently announced that residents citywide can now put out magazines alongside their yellow recycling bins for pickup. They ask that the magazines be tied into bundles or placed in a brown paper bag.

Drew Sones, assistant director in charge of solid waste, said the participation rate so far has been high, even though the program has just gotten off the ground.

“We’re getting a flood right now,” he said. “People have been saving their magazines and they finally have an outlet for them.”

Sanitation workers began collecting magazines in the East Valley in mid-September and in the West Valley this week, according to Enrique Teves, spokesman for the bureau’s recycling division.

The magazine pickup is one more step in the bureau’s efforts to expand its recycling program, Sones said. The city’s goal is to recycle 15 million pounds of magazines per year, said Sones, who predicted that magazines will eventually make up 14% of the waste that is diverted from landfills.

Recycled magazines are used in the manufacture of newspapers, cereal boxes and tissues.

“It brings us closer to our goal to recycle 50% (of our waste) by the year 2000,” Sones said.

Currently, Los Angeles recycles 17% of its waste. About 50% of city households recycle waste materials.