Long Beach trash compromise seeks ways to meet new recycling law, satisfy haulers.

Long Beach trash compromise seeks ways to meet new recycling law, satisfy haulers

Many Southern California cities are looking to Long Beach as a model for ways to allow all the trash haulers in the city to remain in business and yet meet the requirements of a new state recycling law.

The Integrated Waste Management Act requires that cities divert 25 percent of their trash from the state's overburdened landfills by the year 1995 and 50 percent by the year 2000. Cities which don't comply with the law will be fined as much as $10,000 a day.

Keeping track of all the trash a city generates, let alone recycling it, is a huge task and is why a number of small cities throughout Southern California are awarding exclusive franchises for all trash pickup, said Joan Edwards, director of integrated solid waste management for the city of Los Angeles. However, the awarding of an exclusive contract could drive dozens of haulers out of business, she noted.

Jim Kuhl, Long Beach Waste Management Officer, said he did not want to drive haulers out of business and decided to meet with haulers to find a way to meet the recycling goals of the state law. "We have every reason to believe that the haulers are going to cooperate if they want to stay in business in the City of Long Beach," he said.

The plan involved meeting with about a dozen highly competitive trash haulers who agreed to give proprietary information about the amount of trash hauled. The information will be used to work out a way for each hauler to pay a fair share of the costs of implementing recycling.

"I believe the city is doing the right thing in asking all the trash haulers to solve the problem," said Bob Abajian, vice president of the Bel-Art Paper Stock Company Inc., a recycling and refuse company based in Long Beach.

Abajian said if an exclusive contract was awarded in Long Beach, it could hurt large and small haulers alike. "I think the City of Long Beach is pretty progressive. That's why they asked for everyone's opinion, not just the big guys, but the small guys, too," he said.

Chip Scholz, government affairs manager for Browning Ferris Industries, which recently lost out on exclusive contracts to do business in Redondo Beach and Carson, said that BFI is in favor of the Long Beach plan.

There are about 40 haulers licensed to pick up trash in the city, said Jim Kuhl, Long Beach waste management officer. The haulers include garbage giant Waste Management Inc., the Oak Brook, Ill.-based company with $4.4 billion in sales in 1989, and some two-truck operations based in Long Beach, Kuhl said.

Kuhl said he does not want to drive the trash haulers out of business. He added that he wants to avoid some of the "politics" which have flared up in nearby cities which have awarded exclusive garbage contracts.

Edwards of Los Angeles and Barbara Cathay, solid waste planning and operations administrator for the city of Pasadena, sat in on Kuhl's meetings with the haulers.

"We liked the concept of working with the haulers," said Cathey, who noted Pasadena later convened a trash hauler committee of its own. Nearby cities have inquired about the plan, she added.

Edwards said driving companies out of business should be a city's last resort. The City of Los Angeles is not only working with trash haulers, but metal and paper haulers as well.

Long Beach generates 500 million tons of garbage a year, half of which is residential waste which the city picks up and half of which is generated by businesses, Kuhl said. Currently, businesses may contract with the hauler of their choice to pick up waste.

"Now they can call in four or five haulers for bids and get their best deal," Kuhl said. "I personally think it leads to better service for everybody."

That is another reason why Kuhl is trying to work with the haulers to in order not to award an exclusive contract. It would be easier to award the contract, and the city could pass on the costs of preparing a waste management plan to the winner of the contract, he said.

Under current law, cities would have to prepare waste management plans detailing how they intend to accomplish the recycling goals and submit them to the state by July 1, 1992, said Kip Lipper, chief consultant to the state assembly Natural Resources Committee.

However, Assemblyman Byron Sher (D-Palo Alto), the sponsor of the original bill, has introduced another one which would extend the deadline for the filing of the management plan by six months, Lipper said.

"The cities and the counties have expressed legitimate concerns that they need more time," Lipper said. "The scope and nature of the plans require a lot of work. A lot of the cities and counties are going out and hiring consultants."

The City of Long Beach has spent $3 million in the last two years on the process of working towards the goals of the Integrated Waste Management Act, Kuhl said.

"Up until this time it has come out of city accounts. None of the private haulers have paid the cost. Now we want them to pay," Kuhl said, adding that haulers may have to pay as much as $500,000 this year.

Abajian said that haulers are willing to pay their share of the bill to meet the state requirements. It's a new cost of business for haulers in business in California in the 1990s, he said.

PHOTO : Trash: State mandates recycling