Setbacks Won’t Stop Project, Recyclers Say

An innovative private curb-side recycling project in Woodland Hills will be expanded Saturday, despite some unexpected setbacks on a local and international scale.

Officials of the Woodland Hills Homeowners Organization said they have set up a permanent collection point for recyclable newspapers, aluminium and plastic and glass bottles, and have established a telephone line for people to call to arrange special pickups.

Recycling crews, meantime, hope to begin using a special truck they have designed to navigate narrow, hilly streets in some Woodland Hills neighborhoods.

And operators of the program are hoping for a reversal of an unanticipated drop in the value of recyclable materials caused by the upcoming Olympic Games in South Korea.

“The value of recyclables has plummeted in the past two months because of the Korean Olympics,” said Tony Alessi, a manager of Community Recycling Center, the Sylmar-based firm that is handling the collections for the homeowners group.

“Most of the stuff goes to Korea, and plants there have stocked up so they won’t have to bother with shipments during the Olympics.”

Scrap material is worth only about half of the $45 a ton it fetched in January, he said.

Launched in January

The recycling project was launched in January as a fund-raising effort for the Foundation for Pierce College, a campus group that helps finance classroom activities.

At the time, it was hailed as the first private communitywide recycling collection effort in Los Angeles.

Since then, however, some Woodland Hills residents have complained that recycling crews failed to retrieve newspapers and bottles left in front of their homes on scheduled monthly first or third Saturday pickup dates.

The expanded pickup program should cure that, Alessi said. His company has modified a small truck to shorten its turning radius so it can be used on some of Woodland Hills’ narrow streets, he said. Additionally, the firm has set up a phone line for residents to call in case pickup crews miss their streets altogether.

Homeowners should call (818) 884-7610 by 5 p.m. on their scheduled pickup day if crews have not arrived, Alessi said. “That way, we can send a special truck out on the following day,” he said.

As for the price drop, salvage experts think the scrap market will improve in October, Alessi said.

The permanent scrap collection point has been set up at the corner of a student parking lot just west of the Pierce College tennis courts at the school’s Winnetka Avenue entrance, said Robert Gross, a vice president of the Woodland Hills Homeowners Organization.

Three bins will be emptied weekly, or more often if necessary, Gross said. He said campus officials plan to encourage Pierce College’s 18,000 students to become involved this year in the recycling effort.

Gross said recycling has raised $6,400 for the college foundation. “We intend to begin working with students now to determine ways that money should be spent,” he said.

Saturday’s curb-side pickups are scheduled to begin at 8 a.m. in an area south of Ventura Boulevard between Corbin Avenue and Mulholland Drive and in an area north of Ventura Boulevard between Fallbrook Avenue and Valley Circle and Victory boulevards.

Pickups on the third Saturday of the month will be in the Carlton Terrace and College Acres sections of Woodland Hills in an area bounded by De Soto Avenue, Victory Boulevard, Corbin Avenue and the Ventura Freeway, Gross said.