TRASH METHOD GETS AN AIRING.

Byline: Kerry Cavanaugh Staff Writer

Los Angeles leaders made a pitch Wednesday to replace landfills with a system that would mash, cook or decompose trash, while environmental groups warned that so-called conversion facilities could decrease recycling and increase pollution.

The pros and cons were aired at City Hall during a hearing of the state's Assembly Committee on Natural Resources, which is considering a law that would encourage the development of conversion technologies.

Europe and Japan have facilities that turn trash into gas, food waste and yard trimmings into compost, and garbage into electricity. But there are no fully operational facilities in California and the few planned projects have prompted community concern.

Alameda County rejected a proposed plant to generate electricity from trash after community and political opposition.

``You have this terminology - gasification and pyrolysis. It's just a slick way of saying incineration,'' said Shabaka Heru, executive director of the Society for Positive Action in Los Angeles.

He worries that these facilities would be built in low-income, predominantly minority communities and expose residents to pollution.

But proponents say these technologies are much cleaner than burning trash, and have met stringent environmental laws in other countries.

And city and county agencies have spent several million dollars studying alternative technologies and hope to build a plant in the region by 2010.

``Many of these technologies are mature technologies and not theories,'' said City Councilman Greig Smith, whose RENEW LA plan would eventually replace Sunshine Canyon Landfill with facilities that turn trash into energy, gasoline or compost.

Los Angeles County plans to build a pilot project to test the technology.

City officials urged legislators to pass Assembly Bill 1090, which would give cities and counties recycling credit for trash sent to conversion facilities. That would encourage jurisdictions to build conversion operations because it would help meet state requirements that 50 percent of all trash be recycled.

California's 36 million residents generate 78 million tons of trash a year. Of that, 41 million tons is buried in landfills.

Rosario Marin, chairwoman of the California Integrated Waste Management Board, said the state has enough landfill capacity for 30 more years of dumping, but cities and counties must plan now to handle that trash in some new way.

Kerry Cavanaugh, [phone]

kerry.cavanaugh(at)dailynews.com