City Joins Drive for Backyard Mulching

The city of Los Angeles will join several other communities in Los Angeles and Orange counties in an effort to educate residents about the benefits of recycling grass clippings right in their own backyards.

The Los Angeles City Council Tuesday approved spending $100,000 to join the Los Angeles and Orange Counties’ Regional Grasscycling Campaign, which is designed to reduce the amount of grass picked up in green barrels.

The money will come from the city’s Used Oil Collection Trust Fund.

Although city officials said the green barrel recycling program, which collects green waste from the city’s 720,000 customers, has succeeded in keeping the waste from landfills, it has also been expensive.

Unlike other recycling programs that generate revenue, the green barrel program requires cities to pay a composter to convert the green waste into mulch.

The regional campaign is expected to promote the use of electric mulching lawn mowers, which officials hope will help improve air quality and reduce the generation of used motor oil.

Also, the campaign will encourage people to buy mulch, creating a demand that, in turn, should bring down the cost of recycling grass.

Other cities participating in the grass-recycling effort are Glendale, Long Beach, Santa Monica and Orange, as well as agencies such as Southern California Edison, Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, and the Air Resources Board.