New Recycling Effort to Debut in Spring

The City Council has allocated $11 million for the city’s new recycling program, whose big blue bins are scheduled to debut this spring in the west San Fernando Valley.

The 90-gallon blue containers will supplement the existing yellow bins and eliminate much of the hassle from recycling, said Enrique Zaldivar, a program manager for the Bureau of Sanitation. City Council is expected to approve an additional $22 million for the blue bins in the coming months.

The bins will enable residents to mix items including newspapers, magazines, junk mail, metal cans, computer paper and corrugated cardboard instead of having to separate them. A blue bin pilot program that has operated in 15 L.A. communities since last April has increased recycling by 148%, Zaldivar said.

“We wanted to come up with a more convenient way of collecting it, so that customers won’t have to spend so much time and so they don’t just give up,” Zaldivar said. He added the council’s funding approval was a “big milestone for us.”

By May, Valley residents west of Woodley Avenue will receive the new bins, which will be emptied automatically like regular garbage. Zaldivar said it will take 18 months to distribute new bins to residents in sanitation districts including North Central, East Valley, West, Harbor and South-Central.

After receiving the blue bins, residents will be allowed to continue using the old yellow bins for four weeks.