ECONOTES : L.A. Tops National Recycling Heap

It’s official: Los Angeles now has the largest curbside recycling program in the United States. Also the pokiest.

It was January, 1990, when then-Mayor Tom Bradley signed the household trash program into law, tossed a few symbolic bottles and cans into a new recycling truck and declared, “The 1990s will be the recycling decade.”

That prophecy was right, but the city’s plan to phase in the program over two years was slowed by a hiring freeze and it was more than five years before the yellow bins rolled into the last Westside neighborhood this spring.

The Bureau of Sanitation’s Recycling & Waste Reduction Division is claiming cautious victory. “We had a revised schedule, and under that we finished on time,” says the bureau’s Gyl Elliott. “We’ve delivered yellow bins to 720,000 households. We are the largest program in the country, and it looks like we will be one of the most successful. The participation rate is estimated at 60%, and that’s good.”

“It’s a major milestone,” says J.P. Ellman, president of the Public Works Board. City residents produce an average of seven pounds of trash per person each working day, a daily total of 15,000 tons, she says: “Thanks to the curbside recycling program, we expect to exceed our goals and be reducing our waste stream by 35% by the end of this year.”

Although all the yellow bins (for cans, glass and plastic) are in place, there are still a few gaps in the rest of the service.

The green containers for yard trimmings (which the city turns into its own designer compost TOPGRO) and black containers for non-recyclable trash still haven’t arrived in some Westside neighborhoods. The schedule calls for full bin participation by September.

The bureau’s L.A. Resource Program also provides bulky item pickup, back-yard composting workshops and household hazardous-waste collection. All are free. Information (in five languages): (800) 773-CITY. The new e-mail address is larp@earthspirit.org,internet.

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Roundup: Want to plant an urban garden in your neighborhood? If you live in Los Angeles, you may be able to get a grant.

The city, thanks to help from some utilities, has $15,000 ($1,000 per City Council district) for tree, flower and ivy plantings, community gardens and other greening projects. For information, call the Environmental Affairs Department at (213) 580-1060.