Program Aims to Make Recycling One Big Mess

The days when recycling meant getting up to your elbows in trash to separate aluminum cans from bottles and newspapers will soon be over.

Under a new citywide program that will be launched today, Los Angeles residents will be able to dump all recyclable material into large blue barrels that will be picked up by city trucks with automated loading mechanisms.

The barrels will replace the small yellow bins that the city provided under its curbside recycling program. Those bins would take only cans and bottles; newspapers and cardboard had to be set on the curb separately.

During a six-month pilot program in the west San Fernando Valley, the blue barrels were credited with collecting 148% more recycled material, increasing from 6.5 pounds per household per week to 16 pounds.

In addition, the number of residents who participated in the curbside recycling effort increased by 84%, according to sanitation officials.

The pilot program was launched in 12,000 homes in the West Valley starting in April. Residents who completed the program gave it a 92% satisfaction rating, according to a city survey.

The city will initially spend $32 million to buy the barrels for 720,000 residential homes citywide. But officials expect the program ultimately to save the city about $3 million a year.

The savings will come from paying less to dump smaller amounts of trash at private landfills and from collecting more revenue from the sale of recycled material. In addition, the city expects to reduce the number of sanitation workers needed by collecting the material with automated trucks. The yellow bins are currently unloaded onto trucks by hand.

The recycled material from the barrels will be separated at city-contracted recycling centers. The city is paid slightly less per ton for unseparated material, but sanitation officials believe the overall increase in recycling will more than make up for the difference.

“These new blues will help Angelenos maximize the green by saving millions of taxpayer dollars and protecting the environment,” said Mayor Richard Riordan, who plans to join Councilwomen Laura Chick and Ruth Galanter today to announce the new program.

The new barrels will be distributed throughout the city over the next 18 months, starting in the West Valley and north-central Los Angeles, said Drew Sones, who oversees the city’s recycling division.

The 90-gallon barrels will be taller than the black 60-gallon trash barrels that all residents now have, he said. The black barrels will still be used for other household trash.

The blue barrels will have the same circumference, allowing the mechanical arms of city trash trucks to unload the barrels.

Sones also believes that scavengers who steal newspapers and aluminum cans from the yellow bins will be discouraged by the lids on the barrels and the co-mingling of the material.

Chick, who represents the West Valley, said she believes the convenience of the new program will be well received throughout the city.

“We keep trying to find a more convenient way to encourage people to recycle,” she said. “This is a very thoughtless process. You just take all your recyclables and toss them in the can.”