Residents Won’t See Recycling Program Until Middle of 1991

Los Angeles’ landmark garbage recycling program, signed into law this week by Mayor Tom Bradley, will not reach San Fernando Valley residents for well over a year, city officials said Friday.

Valley residents east of the San Diego Freeway can expect to begin separating bottles, cans and newspapers from household garbage beginning in May, 1991. Those west of the freeway will be brought into the program in November, 1991.

“Even though recycling has received final approval, the program is so big that there will be a long period of time before the trucks actually start rolling in the Valley,” said Drew Sones, recycling director for the city Bureau of Sanitation.

The massive program stands to significantly alter the chore of taking out the trash by making 322,000 Valley households place glass, metal and garbage in three separate city-provided containers. Newspapers must be stacked separately.

The $190-million program, which will be one of the largest in the nation, is designed to halve the garbage that Los Angeles residents bury in scarce landfill space.

The Valley will be the second region in the city to be brought into the program, after a region stretching from northeast of downtown Los Angeles to the Harbor area.

The communities closest to downtown are first in line because of their proximity to two “transfer facilities,” where new garbage trucks will dump their loads into large container trucks that will then haul trash to a landfill.

Special automated trucks will perform the new transfer and haul procedures designed to reduce dumping and driving time of neighborhood trash trucks.

Two-thirds of the city’s trash trucks now must make a long journey up to Lopez Canyon Landfill in Lake View Terrace when they are full.

A section of Lopez Canyon Landfill will be used as a transfer station for Valley and Westside garbage, Sones said.

The delay in the program reaching the Valley is partially due to the need to purchase the new trucks and construct the transfer station in Lopez Canyon.

As the recycling program nears operation in the Valley, residents will receive notification either through the mail or through publicity flyers, city officials said.