Plan Would Make Trash Firms Offer Recycling

Private trash haulers would be required to provide recycling services to the Los Angeles apartments and businesses they serve under a proposal to significantly expand the amount of waste diverted from landfills.

The plan, now under review by Mayor Richard Riordan, would require the city’s more than 100 private trash haulers to enter into franchise agreements to provide recycling to their customers.

“We are recommending that recycling be a condition for receiving a franchise,” said Judith Wilson, director of the city Sanitation Bureau.

The change could help the city meet Riordan’s goal of recycling 70% of all trash generated in Los Angeles by 2020, up from 47% today, officials said Tuesday.

Riordan asked the bureau to draft a franchise ordinance in December, when he approved expansion of the Sunshine Canyon Landfill in Granada Hills. Foes of the dump said the expansion would not be necessary if the city recycled more of the 3.4 million tons of trash it generates annually.

Currently, the city collects about 34% of L.A. trash, mostly from single-family homes and some apartment buildings, with 54% picked up by private haulers who serve the remaining apartment buildings and commercial clients, according to Drew Sones, who oversees trash collection for the city.

The city offers its customers full-service recycling, but few private haulers provide widespread recycling, partly because there is no requirement to do so.

One option would be to simply mandate that all apartment buildings and businesses recycle their waste. But city officials said a study of other cities found that a franchise system requiring haulers to offer the service works better.

Haulers said Tuesday that a mandate would drive up the cost of service, which they would have to pass on to customers.

“We want to remain as competitive as possible,” said Laree Johnson, who manages a hauling company in the San Fernando Valley.

Arnie Berghoff, who represents Browning-Ferris Industries and Republic Services, also cited the cost. “We will comply with whatever they ask, but someone has to pay for it,” Berghoff said. “Essentially, the customers will end up paying for it.”

Sones said a survey of other cities found that recycling added about $1 to $2.50 per apartment household to the average monthly refuse collection bill.

“We don’t want to put the small haulers out of business,” said Janet Oliphant of the Greater Los Angeles Solid Waste Management Assn. “There are a number of questions we have.”

Even if the proposal is adopted, it could take a number of years to implement.

“It took us 10 years to roll the first one out,” Sones said.