Where’s my blue bin?

I come from a family that is neurotic about recycling. Unlike the less-fanatical ranks of the environmentally semiconscious, we wash out all our bottles. We check paper for food stains. Many a roommate has raised her eyebrow at my obsessive box-flattening habits.

Coming to Southern California wasn’t going to change that. So I collected bottles and piled up paper for a few weeks, and one night I hauled the lot downstairs to find not a blue bin, not a recycling sign, but a dismally odorous trashcan beneath my apartment building. Tangle-haired, in pajamas, I dragged sacks of bottles and cans through dark alleys, looking to dump my load into someone else’s blue bin.

In the end, I just tossed the whole lot in a dumpster, fuming. In an area that throws away so much -- in 2003, Los Angeles County produced close to 10 million tons of waste -- how is it that local apartment dwellers don’t recycle?

Overall, the city’s recycling efforts are pretty good. Los Angeles ties for first place in Sustainlane.com’s ranking of major U.S. cities, and the city boasts waste-diversion rates of over 60%. That’s impressive, especially because the city until recently only allowed single-family homes into its recycling program -- even though 42% of L.A.’s housing stock consists of multifamily residences. Think how much more we’d recycle if the program were extended to these households.

Fortunately, that’s starting to happen. After a successful three-year pilot recycling program for multifamily buildings, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa announced in July that the program was going public, and permanent. As of September, about 4,000 buildings representing nearly 127,000 units have signed up.

The city is on the right track, but it has a long way to go to reach its 540,000 rental units -- a total that doesn’t include condos and townhomes.

A major problem lies in persuading building owners and managers to participate. They don’t want to attract vagrants, who fish through trash to find recyclables they can redeem for cash, or deal with tenants throwing garbage in recycling bins. After fighting my own manager’s broken English and stubborn refrain -- security, security, security -- I nearly gave up. Instead, I appealed to a higher authority: the landlord. She was guarded, but after I explained the new (free) program, she perked up and asked me to send her the link to sign up. Score one for the environment!

While I wait for the blue bins to appear, I’ve devised a highly efficient recycling system: Give it to the sifters who look through the garbage. My trash is their treasure, and I know it will get to a recycling center.

And with that, my withered Berkeley soul strikes a blow for cooperative waste management.

-- Amina Khan