RECYCLING CATCH UP SEVERAL PLANS TO BE TESTED AT APARTMENTS.

Byline: Kerry Cavanaugh and Lisa Mascaro Staff Writer

More than a decade after requiring trash recycling in single-family neighborhoods, Los Angeles city officials are ready to launch a $6 million, two-year pilot recycling program for apartment dwellers. But critics say officials should just make it mandatory now.

By late February, the city will start experimenting with ways of collecting recyclables and encouraging participation at more than 100,000 of the city's 650,000 multifamily units.

In two years, they hope to have the best plan and institute it citywide.

``We want to reduce our dependency on landfilling, and the only way to do that is to reduce what we dispose,'' said Enrique Zaldivar, assistant director with the Bureau of Sanitation. ``It's still in the pilot phase, but it's still a huge leap towards recycling in apartment complexes.''

But recycling advocates say Los Angeles should start citywide recycling now as so many other California communities already have done.

``I don't think it's that complicated,'' said Mark Murray, executive director of the Sacramento-based Californians Against Waste.

``At some point, you need the city - you need the mayor's office, the city attorney's office - to say, This is what we're going to do. The experience from so many other cities is you just got to do it.

``It's not like 10 years ago, where recycling is something they did in Santa Monica and not something they did across the state. It just seems like the city has the leverage here - if you want to play the garbage game, you have to play the recycling game.''

Statewide, 30 to 40 percent of cities offer the service to apartment residents.

Burbank and Glendale operate their own trash pick-up services and offer recycling to buildings that request it. Glendale even has city workers pull the bins out to the curb for pickup, which doubles the cost, but only half of buildings choose to recycle.

In Los Angeles, apartment residents produce 21 percent of the city's 3.5 million tons of trash that goes to landfills.

While city crews pick up trash at single-family homes, most complexes contract with private firms to haul away trash.

Los Angeles County requires private haulers to offer recycling if an apartment complex requests it, but few complexes do.

Complexes say it's too expensive and there's no room for containers. Few owners want to pay the extra service fee.

The $6 million test program will offer curbside recycling in Northridge, Canoga Park, West Hills, Sherman Oaks and the East San Fernando Valley, among other neighborhoods.

The program comes after the city, in 2002, required private garbage haulers to pay 10 percent of their revenues into a recycling fund, of which $6 million will now pay five contractors to initiate apartment collection programs.

Three contracts have been OK'd by the Board of Public Works and mayoral approval. Two more contracts are expected to go before the board in coming weeks.

The companies will introduce a variety of methods - from simply dropping bags of recyclables in with the trash to using a designated recycling bin. The costs range from $2 to $4.50 per unit per month.

``We're hoping by keeping it simple, so all you have to do is put your bottles in cans in a bag and throw it in the trash as you normally do, it will convince people to do it,'' said Leonard Lang, general manager of Sun Valley Paper Stock, which will be collecting from 5,000 units in the East Valley.

But complaints are that most buildings don't have room to add a recycling bin. Tenants change frequently, and many residents don't have the space to store bottles, cans and paper.

``There's a convenience factor lacking in apartment buildings,'' said Mark Alpers, vice president and director of Environmental Science Associates' solid waste group, which runs apartment recycling programs in San Francisco, San Jose and Santa Ana and will start recycling at complexes in Los Angeles.

``It's very difficult to do without a very hands-on public outreach campaign ... and lots of hand-holding to keep interest up.''

Estimates are that upward of 35 percent of apartment trash could be recycled.

``We wouldn't have as many truckloads going to Sunshine Canyon,'' said Kim Thompson of the North Valley Coalition and Granada Hills North Neighborhood Council. ``It's one of our biggest recycling problems in Los Angeles. It's just huge, and it needs to be done.''

Kerry Cavanaugh, [phone]

kerry.cavanaugh(at)dailynews.com

RECYCLING IN APARTMENTS

Contractors will use a variety of methods to collect bottles, can, paper and cardboard from apartment dwellers.

--Blue bag it: Residents put recyclables in bright blue bags that are deposited in the trash bin with the regular garbage. The hauler picks up the garbage, takes it to a transfer station and dumps the load. Workers pull out the blue bags and sort the content for sale to recyclers. Trash is compacted and taken to the landfill.

--Store it in a bin: Residents stash recyclables in plastic bags and carry the full bags to a wheeled container - much like the single-family home recycling bins - near the trash bin. Hauler empties the recycle bins and workers at the materials recovery facility sort the recyclables.

--Stick it on your doorknob: Residents put recyclables in a plastic bag and hang the bag on their front doorknob on the designated pickup day. Workers come by the apartments, collect the bags and carry them to a bin for the hauler to collect.

--Carry it to recycling area: Large apartment buildings with the space could have a community recycling area where residents collect and carry their stuff to the bins, which a hauler will pick up.

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Photo:

(color) Recycled materials are delivered - and then separated - at Sun Valley Paper Stock Inc.

Phil McCarten/Staff Photographer

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RECYCLING IN APARTMENTS